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LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  bTTVcA. cJ.T?\-Vcn  \(^  Smi+Vi  *DrD. 


BR  121  .W25  1919 

Waring,  Henry  Fish,  1870- 

1936. 
Christianity's  unifying 

fundamental 


CHRISTIANITY'S  UNIFYING  FUNDAMENTAL 
HENRY    F.    WARING 


CHRISTIANITY'S 
UNIFYING  FUNDAMENTAL 


BY 


^^^W  OF  PSW^ 
HENRY  F.  WARING    /  <^  % 

AUTHOR  OF  "CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  BIBLE,"  E^J.         JUL     2.'^     1920 


NEW  XSJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1919, 
By  Henry  F,  Waring 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  MY  SONS 
WALDO  AND  HENRY 


INTRODUCTION 

'fTT^IS  easy  t'  think  hard,  but  'tis  sometime 
I  hard  V  think  t'  the  point."  The  world 
crisis  has  stung  all  Christendom  into 
deeper  thinking — ^not  simply  to  think  hard  but 
to  think  to  the  point.  As  one  far-reaching  re- 
sult, a  spirit  that  was  already  growing  has  been 
profoundly  quickened — a  spirit  of  yearning  for 
unifying  co-operation  based  on  that  which  is 
really  fundamental.  To  direct  attention  to  the 
biggest,  deepest,  and  most  unifying  thought  in 
Christianity  is  the  object  of  this  irenicon. 

It  recognises  that  many,  inside  as  well  as 
outside  the  churches,  are  caring  less  and  less 
for  ecclesiastical  differences  based  on  exe- 
getical  subtilties  and  theological  technicalities. 
They  do  not  deny,  perhaps,  that  these  may 
have  a  legitimate  place.  For  themselves,  how- 
ever, they  want  the  big,  unifying  things  of  re- 
ligion and  life.  Many  of  them  are  fighting  out 
in  their  own  souls  the  bitter  battle  of  doubt 
concerning  even  the  foundations  of  their  fath- 
ers' faith.  To  such  the  following  chapters  aim 
to  show  what  really  is  fundamental  and  the 
way  it  is  attained. 
From  a  score  or  more  of  men  of  widely  dif- 


Vll 


viii  Introduction 


ferent  training — some  members  of  different  de- 
nominations and  the  rest  outside  of  the  Church 
altogether — came  a  significant  request.  They 
asked  for  a  night  a  week  until  they  would  be 
helped  through  their  differences  and  doubts  to 
a  conviction  that  they  would  be  able  to  ex- 
press and  support.  Inspiring  months  of  these 
conferences  were  followed  by  a  course  of  pub- 
lic lectures,  after  each  of  which  questions  from 
the  audience  were  answered.  What  follows  is 
the  precipitate  from  the  laboratory  of  these 
experiences.  It  is  not  a  collection  of  detached 
lectures,  but  each  chapter  was  prepared  with 
the  thought  of  the  whole  sequence. 

No  effort  has  been  made  to  construct  a  steel- 
turreted  creed,  since  the  strongest  creedal  for- 
tress inevitably  falls.  Instead,  the  thought  has 
been  to  show  how  it  is  possible  to  **dig  in'' 
successfully  against  bigotry,  scepticism,  ma- 
terialism, and  other  enemies  of  progress.  The 
purpose  is  to  suggest  how,  through  progressive 
intrenchment,  continuous  victory  may  be  won 
for  humanity  in  the  name  of  the  Christ. 

The  aim  of  the  first  two  chapters  will  be  to 
lead  to  a  keen  appreciation  of  a  great  need; 
of  the  next  ^Ye^  to  give  the  stages  in  a  quest  to 
satisfy  this  need;  and  of  the  last  five  to  show 
the  result  of  this  quest  in  its  relation  to  the 
biggest  things  of  life. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Bigotry  and  Scepticism       .....       13 
I  Bigots 
II  Sceptics 
III  The  Rest  of  Us 

II  The  Unifying  Way 24 

I  Tolerance 
II  Questing  Truth 
III  Fundamental  Truth  First 

III  The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  ....       34 

I  Sources  for  Knowledge  of  Jesus 
II  Compared  with  Those  for  Paul 
III  The  Essential  Jesus  Knowable 

IV  The  Immediacy  of  God 46 

I  The  Divergence  of  Science  and  Theology 
II  The  Convergence  of  Science  and  Theology 

V  The  Trinity  Truth 57 

I  The  Trinity  Historically  Considered 
II  Jesus  as  Immanilel 

III  The  Holy  Spirit  as  Immanuel 

IV  The  Nature  of  God 

VI  Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man    .     .       69 

I  Christian  Prayer 
II  The  Christian  Ideal 
ix 


X  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE: 

VII  Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental  .       87 

I  Fundamental 

II  Distinctively  Christian 
III  Historically  Wise 
IV  Specially  Inspiring 

V  Unifying 

VIII    LONESOMENESS 92 

I  A  Deep  Life  Fact 
II  Lonesomeness  Diagnosed 

III  Christian  Fellowship  with  God 

IV  Christian  Fellowship  with  Man 

IX  Others 109 

I  In  the  Life  and  Teaching  of  Jesus 
II  Churches  as  Search  Parties 

III  The  Social  Gospel 

IV  Vicarious  Sacrifice 

X  The  Unit  of  Society 125 

/  I  Jesus  and  the  Family 
II  Blessing  and  Bane 

III  Sinful  Silence 

IV  The  School  of  Home 

XI  Character — Here  and  Hereafter    .     .     144 
I  Here 
II  Hereafter 

XII  Joy 157 

I  The  Pursuit  of  Pleasure 
II  The  Normahty  of  Christian  Joy 

III  Special  Causes  for  Joy 

IV  Joy's  Undertone 


CHRISTIANITY'S  UNIFYING  FUNDAMENTAL 


CHRISTIANITY'S    UNIFYING 
FUNDAMENTAL 

CHAPTER  I 
BIGOTRY  AND  SCEPTICISM 

I.     BIGOTS 

BIGOTS  differ  widely.  Some  are  moral. 
Others  are  immoral.  Some  are  unctuous. 
Others  are  not.  Some,  nominally  at  least, 
will  concede  that  there  are  two  sides.  To  have 
such  an  idea  forced  upon  others  might  be  as 
fatal  as  the  storied  stone  that  mortally  sur- 
prised Goliath;  for  such  a  thought  has  never 
entered  their  heads  before.  Vehemently  as- 
serting their  own  position  in  minor  questions, 
they  look  with  horror  on  any  who  doubt  the 
existence  of  God  or  of  an  inerrant  book.  While 
all  bigots  are  intolerant,  some  would  wish  them- 
selves accursed  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  they 
have  espoused.  Striking  out  from  the  shoulder 
because  they  feel  they  are  doing  God's  serv- 
ice, though  their  intolerance  is  to  be  regretted, 
they  themselves  are  to  be  respected.    On  the 

13 


i^    Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

other  hand  are  those  who  move  in  sinnous  ways, 
strike  in  the  dark  one  to  them  heretical,  filch 
from  him  his  good  name,  and  make  him  poor 
indeed. 

What  are  the  causes  of  bigotry!  With  some 
it  is  temperamental.  It  could  almost  be  said 
that  they  were  bigots  bom.  With  others  it  is 
largely  a  matter  of  association  and  environ- 
ment. Much  depends  on  whether  the  atmos^ 
phere  is  democratic  or  autocratic.  When  Chris- 
tianity was  bom  democracy  was  not  known. 
Church  polity  and  its  creeds  were  shaped  when 
Christians  were  under  autocracy.  Naturally 
enough,  therefore,  much  of  its  theology  and  its 
government  was  autocratic.  Emphasis,  accord- 
ingly, was  put  upon  authority  rather  than  in- 
vestigation, infallibility  rather  than  discussion, 
what  had  been  rather  than  what  ought  to  be, 
conformity  rather  than  experiment,  etc.  In 
fact,  church  leaders  often  opposed  the  progress 
of  democracy  with  its  discussions,  investiga- 
tions, and  experiments.  Bigotry  is  more  out 
of  place  in  a  democracy  than  in  an  autocracy. 
The  growth  of  democracy  in  the  world  should 
mean  the  decline  of  bigotry  in  the  church. 

With  many  bigotry  is  due  to  a  perverted  love 
of  truth — a  good  thing  gone  wrong.  To  some 
it  might  be  said,  *'I  wot  that  through  ignorance 
ye  did  it.'' '  As  a  modern  epigram  expresses  it, 


Bigotry  and  Scepticism  15 

when  a  man  is  not  **iip  in*'  a  thing  he  is  usually 
**down  on  if  The  difficulty  of  being  **up  in'' 
biblical  criticism  is  an  important  explanation 
of  bigotry's  anathemas  against  it.  The  com- 
mon cry  is  that  the  scholarship  engaged  in  this 
work  is  both  unspiritual  and  puffed  up  with 
pride. 

With  this  in  mind  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  perhaps  the  greatest  cause  of  bigotry  it- 
self is  just  this  lack  of  due  humility.  Of  all 
bigots  the  most  difficult  to  get  along  with  are 
the  unctuous  kind,  who  naively  imply  that  they 
have  superior  spiritual-mindedness  and,  as  a 
result,  superior  insight.  A  common  thought 
with  them  is  that  if  a  man  is  scholarly,  there- 
fore, he  is  not  spiritually  minded — ^if  he  dif- 
fers from  them.  Under  the  guise  of  humility 
(saying  the  guidance  is  all  of  the  Spirit)  they 
practically  claim  infallibility  in  the  theological 
matters  in  dispute.  Professing  humility,  they 
possess,  or  are  possessed  with,  a  blind  self- 
esteem  suggesting  Coleridge's  lines: 

"And  the  Devil  did  grin,  for  his  darling  sin 
Is  pride  that  apes  humility." 

**It  is  a  melancholy  fact,"  writes  Professor 
David  Smith,  **that,  so  far  at  least  as  my  ob- 
servation extends,  the  worst  troublers  of  con- 


1 6     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 


gregational  peace  are  people  of  the  superla- 
tively pious  order  wlio  talk  mucli  about  Con- 
version and  the  Higher  Life.  I  am  disposed 
to  make  large  allowance  for  them.  They  have 
had  an  experience  and  it  is  so  real  to  them  that 
they  regard  it  as  the  only  possible  experience 
and  condemn  everyone  who  does  not  share  it 
as  'spiritually  dead.'  Nevertheless,  they  are 
very  trying,  very  disagreeable,  and  very  harm- 
ful. Their  bigotry  and  self -righteousness  give 
Christianity  an  ill  savour  and  alienate  multi- 
tudes from  the  Church." 

According  to  what  is  popularly  called  **The 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,''  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus 
sins  that  the  sanctimoniously  conceited  bigot 
condemns  in  unctuous  tones  would  be  as  motes 
compared  with  the  bigot's  own  beam  of  self- 
righteous,  censorious  sinfulness.  His  conver- 
sion, of  which  he  often  speaks,  may  be  but  a 
change  of  sins,  and  from  bad  to  worse.  Perhaps 
with  him  it  is  the  giving  up  of  certain  ques- 
tioned amusements  that  has  made  for  a  serious 
increase  in  the  intolerance  and  back-biting  of 
sanctimonious  pride.  Because  he  differs  from 
others  in  that  he  tithes  ''mint  and  anise  and 
cummin, "though  he  leaves  undone,  as  may  be 
they  do  not,  'Hhe  weightier  matters  of  the  law" 
—he  is  self -righteously  censorious  of  them.  This 
very  self-righteousness,  however,  is  just  the 


Bigotry  and  Scepticism  17 

thing  that  blinds  the  bigot  to  the  greatness  of 
his  sin.  This  is  a  truth  that  needs  to  be  re- 
peated again  and  again,  and  with  no  uncertain 
sound.  Bigotry  battens  on  its  autobiography. 
It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye 
of  a  needle  than  for  bigotry  to  read  its  biog- 
raphy. Both  the  Bible  and  church  history  show 
it  to  be  a  biography  of  blood. 

There  is  no  time  to  tell  it  here.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that  bigotry  it  was  that  put  to  death  Jesus 
of  Nazareth ;  and  that  as  a  heretic  he  was  con- 
demned to  death  by  those  whose  spirit  is  still 
alive.  As  Beecher  so  eloquently  said,  **We 
have  just  the  same  kind  of  people  yet  in  all 
the  denominations — ^men  who  feel  themselves 
called  to  sit  in  judgment  over  their  church, 
their  creeds,  their  forms  of  worship,  the  whole 
of  religion,  and  to  take  care  of  them,  and  to 
see  that  they  do  not  suffer  from  infidels,  espe- 
cially from  those  worst  of  infidels,  heretics,  or 
men  that  go  aside  from  the  regulation  belief 
of  the  times  and  of  the  church.  Even  a  crab 
knows  enough  once  a  year  to  get  rid  of  its 
shell  in  order  to  have  a  bigger  one;  it  is  the 
sectary  that  does  not  know  it!  Men  think,  if 
you  disturb  beliefs,  creeds,  institutions,  cus- 
toms, methods,  manners,  that  of  course  you 
disturb  all  they  contain;  but  Christ  said:  No: 
the  very  way  to  fulfil  these  things  is  to  give 


1 8     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

them  a  chance  to  open  a  larger  way.  A  bud 
must  die  if  you  are  going  to  have  the  same 
thing  an  hundred-fold  increased/' 


II.     SCEPTICS 

According  to  what  they  doubt  and  the  way 
they  treat  their  doubts  sceptics  differ  widely. 
Some  are  double-minded,  unstable  in  all  their 
ways.  Others,  without  guile,  are  anxious  for 
light  and  to  do  the  right.  The  vanity  of  **a 
picker  up  of  learning's  crumbs,"  who  treats 
with  blatant  levity  the  heart-rooted  faith  and 
treasured  hopes  of  others,  must  be  viewed  with 
pity  and  (for  the  most  part)  silence.  Not  so 
honest  doubt.  It  must  be  met.  Writes  one, 
whose  honest  reasoning  concerning  his  earlier 
view  of  the  Bible  brought  him  into  a  state  of 
bewilderment:  **I  am  sick  of  platitudes,  eva- 
sions, and  glittering  generalities.  I  want  to  be 
treated  with  sincerity.  I  want  to  hear  the  sim- 
ple truth — ^not  *as  to  a  little  child,'  but  as  to 
a  grown  man,  who  must  reason  as  well  as  feel — • 
a  man  who  has  sinned  and  suffered  and  now 
fain  would  find  a  safe  anchorage  for  his  soul 
in  this  sea  of  doubt  and  trouble." 

Beside  such  (and  they  are  many)  whose 
doubts  are  finding  public  expression  in  the  hope 
of  help,  is  a  still  larger  number  of  doubters 


Bigotry  and  Scepticism  19 

who  are  silent  or  give  private  expression  to 
their  doubts  only  at  exceptional  times.  The 
central  figure  in  a  striking  trio,  painted  by  a 
modem,  represents  increasingly  large  numbers 
today.  To  the  right  is  calm-faced  Faith;  to 
the  left  gloomy-faced  Unbelief;  between,  and 
touching  both,  a  sorrowing  Soul.  Her  face 
has  not  the  settled  gloom  of  Unbelief  nor  the 
settled  peace  of  Faith.  It  is  filled  with  the  sor- 
row of  Doubt.  How  many  shrink  from  the 
thought  of  being  thought  a  doubter  and  yet  can- 
not lay  their  doubts !  How  many,  for  instance, 
dread  to  face  the  reasons  for  their  inherited 
view  of  the  atonement  lest  it  appear  crude  or 
immoral !  How  many  who  pray  concerning  the 
views  of  their  fathers,  *'We  believe,  help  Thou 
our  unbelief!"  How  many  others  who  do  not 
pray  at  all  because  they  face  the  doubt  of 
doubts:  **God?  Is  there  a  good.  Almighty 
God?" 

Why  do  doubters  doubt?  Some  have  been 
embittered  into  it  by  .misfortune;  others  by 
the  chicanery  and  wrong  doings  of  professed 
religionists  in  their  '^ shirt  sleeves."  Some  are 
drawn  into  it  by  the  scepticism  of  others. 
Some  are  driven  into  it  by  the  intolerant  dog- 
matism of  bigots. 

In  a  discussion  about  the  absolute  inerrancy 
of    the    Bible,    a    conscientious    evangelistic 


20     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

worker  quoted  PauPs:  ^'He  that  doubteth.  is 
damned;"  and  expressed  his  interpretation 
thereof  by  adding:  *^and  will  go  to  hell."  The 
right  rendering  and  the  real  meaning  of  the 
passage,  in  the  light  of  its  context  and  times, 
he  had  never  faced.  He  conld  not  appreciate 
Tennyson's  lines: 

"There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds;" 

nor  Bailey's:  '^Who  never  doubted,  never  half 
believed;"  nor  Shakespeare's 

"Modest  doubt  is  called 
The  beacon  of  the  wise," 

nor  Paul's  own  exhortation  to  the  Corinthians 
as  sensible  men  to  form  their  own  judgment  of 
what  he  wrote.  The  pathos  of  the  situation  was 
that  in  his  devotion  to  his  convictions  he  in- 
creased doubt.  It  is  pathetic  to  read  that  in 
the  early  stages  of  his  questionings  Bradlaugh 
was  snubbed  by  his  clergyman;  and  that  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Coleridge,  troubled  about  inspira- 
tion, was  told  by  the  devout  Keble  that  **most 
of  the  men  who  had  difficulties  on  that  subject 
were  too  wicked  to  be  reasoned  with." 

It   is   true  that   some   doubt  because  their 
hearts  are  evil.    It  is  also  true  that  many  doubt 


Bigotry  and  Scepticism  21 

because  their  heads  are  good.  If  from  a  bad 
heart,  doubt  may  be  a  cloak,  or  excuse,  for  sin. 
If  from  a  good  head,  it  may  be  an  opportunity 
to  rise  to  a  lofty  vision  and  a  sure  hope.  The 
way  of  doubt  is  often  a  climbing  path  to  the 
heights  of  truth.  Dark  doubt  may  usher  in  an 
angel  of  light.  Active  doubt  gives  freshness 
and  virility  to  faith.  A  man  never  appreciates 
a  truth  as  well  as  he  does  after  he  has  doubted 
it  and  felt  its  loss.  History  shows  that  fan- 
cied certainty  about  a  view  often  made  for  a 
fatal  indifference  concerning  it.  Better  an 
honest  doubt  that  leads  to  investigation  that 
ends  in  truth  than  a  credulity  that  leads  to 
apathy  that  ends  in  dearth  and  death.  *^  Moral 
and  religious  truths, '^  says  one,  *' subsist  only 
for  him  who  discerns  them  freshly  out  of  him- 
self. *'  All  hail  to  the  doubt  that  leads  to  such 
discernment ! 

As  a  psalmist  said  to  deity,  an  honest  scep- 
tic may  say  to  doubt,  not  only,  '^Thou  art  my 
light ^'  but  also,  '^my  salvation.''  If  there 
were  no  place  for  doubt,  once  error  crept  in 
(as  it  inevitably  does)  there  would  be  no  hope 
of  overcoming  it.  As  fog  purifies  the  air,  so 
the  subsidence  of  doubt  has  often  meant  the 
falling  away  of  error  from  commonly  accepted 
views.  In  a  true  sense,  then,  man,  often,  is 
saved  by  doubt. 


22     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

III.     THE  REST  OF  US 

So  mucli  for  bigots  and  sceptics.  How  about 
tbe  rest  of  us?  In  various  degrees  both  scep- 
ticism and  bigotry  are  to  be  found  in  every  one 
of  us.  It  is  not  enough  to  recognise  the  in- 
harmonious conditions  among  Christians  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  bitter  sectarian  persecu- 
tions throughout  church  history,  and  the  ec- 
clesiastical element  in  the  terrible  bloodshed  of 
modern  war.  It  should  be  recognised  clearly 
that  it  is  because  of  our  own  variously  com- 
bined scepticism  and  bigotry  that  much  good 
is  prevented  and  much  evil  wrought  today. 

It  is  thus  that  we  are  unable  to  see,  or  see 
but  dimly,  the  different  elements  of  good  in 
the  non-Christian  religions,  in  the  other  two 
great  divisions  of  Christianity  and  in  the  other 
divisions  of  the  divisions,  aye,  subdivisions  of 
the  subdivisions,  in  which  we  find  ourselves. 
Our  sectarian  blindness  commonly  is  inversely 
proportioned  to  the  size  of  the  sect  to  which  we 
belong.  We  are  worse  than  blind.  At  times  we 
are  bitter.  We  not  only  look  with  unwar- 
ranted suspicion  upon  other  religionists,  but 
we  enter  into  unbecoming  rivalry  with  them, 
feel  jealous  over  their  success,  and  even  put 
obstacles  in  their  way.  To  say  the  least,  we 
lack  lamentably  in  that  spirit  of  comity  and  co- 


Bigotry  and  Scepticism  23 

operation  without  which  it  is  impossible  to 
overcome  the  terrible  evils  of  today  and  usher 
in  the  new  era.  Surely  it  is  time  to  enter  the 
unifying  way  and  follow  hard  after  the  things 
that  make  for  peace. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  UNIFYING  WAY 

I.     TOLERANCE 

THERE  is  the  miifymg  way  of  hnmble, 
appreciative  tolerance.  Since  scepticism 
commonly  despises  bigotry,  which  in  turn 
commonly  fears  and  hates  scepticism ;  and  since 
bigotry,  though  it  have  the  truth,  is  always 
wrong  in  spirit,  and  scepticism,  though  never 
necessarily  wrong  in  spirit,  is  commonly  so: 
it  is  for  bigots,  sceptics,  and  the  rest  of  us  to 
seek  to  be  humbly,  appreciatively  tolerant. 
Big  souls  recognise  that  those  who  differ  from 
them  may  be  just  as  sincere  in  their  belief  as 
they  themselves.  The  sceptic,  who  doubts  even 
what  seems  to  be  fundamental,  may  be  abso- 
lutely sincere  in  his  doubts.  The  bigot,  de- 
spised because  of  his  blind  intolerance,  may  be 
more  ready  to  go  to  the  stake  for  conscience' 
sake  than  those  who  despise  him.  The  sus- 
pected and  persecuted  sceptic  should  catch  the 
humorously  sweet  spirit  of  Bishop  Brooks: 

24 


The   Unifying  Way  25 


"And  this  is  then  the  way  he  looks, 
This  tiresome  creature,  Phillips  Brooks? 
No  wonder  if  'tis  thus  he  looks, 
The  Church  has  doubts  of  Phillips  Brooks! 
Well,  if  he  knows  himself  he'll  try 
To  give  these  doubtful  looks  the  lie. 
He  dares  not  promise,  but  will  seek 
Even  as  a  bishop  to  be  meek: 
To  walk  the  way  he  shall  be  shown, 
To  trust  a  strength  that's  not  his  own, 
To  fill  the  years  with  honest  work, 
To  serve  his  days  and  not  to  shirk; 
To  quite  forget  what  folks  have  said, 
To  keep  his  heart  and  keep  his  head. 
Until  men,  laying  him  to  rest. 
Shall  say,  'At  least  he  did  his  best/'' 

While  it  is  important  to  recognise  the  sin- 
cerity of  others,  it  is  also  important  to  recog- 
nise one's  own  fallibility.  According  to  that 
variously  given  mot,  no  one  is  infallible — not 
even  the  youngest.  Those  who  claim  to  be 
guided  by  an  infallible  Holy  Spirit  should  re- 
member that,  granting  the  possibility  of  such 
guidance,  it  is  themselves  that  decide  the  ex- 
tent and  degree  of  that  guidance.  Can  they  say 
that  their  own  human  selves  are  infallible  in  so 
deciding?  This  is  the  question  that,  in  their 
self-conceit,  bigots  cannot,  or  will  not,  face.  A 
fair  facing  of  it  would  kill  intolerance. 


26     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

Eeligious  tolerance  has  been  a  hard  lesson 
for  the  ages  to  take  out.  A  portal  legend  at 
a  great  Fair  ran:  *^ Religious  toleration  is  the 
great  achievement  of  the  last  four  hundred 
years."  John  Fiske  wrote:  *' Cotton  in  his 
elaborate  controversy  with  Roger  Williams 
frankly  asserted  that  persecution  is  not  wrong 
in  itself.  It  is  wicked  for  falsehood  to  perse- 
cute truth,  but  it  is  the  sacred  duty  of  truth 
to  persecute  falsehood."  Increasing  numbers 
appreciate  the  humour  of  such  an  expression. 
Unfortunately,  however,  numbers,  even  today, 
do  not.  Many  still  are  like  the  disciples,  as 
pictured  in  the  story  where  they  said  to  Jesus 
concerning  another  worker,  *'We  forbade  him 
because  he  followed  not  us."  But  Jesus  said, 
** Forbid  him  not." 

These  widely  differing  attitudes  of  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  are  found  (often  in  unexpected 
quarters)  elsewhere  in  the  Bible,  throughout 
church  history,  and  in  the  church  life  of  today. 
The  great  need  is  for  men  and  women  big- 
Kouled  enough  to  see  the  elements  of  good  in 
the  positions  of  others  and  be  willing  to  co- 
operate. Mere  tolerance  may  be  heartless. 
What  is  needed  is  a  spirit  of  appreciation  and 
co-operation. 


The  Unifying  Way  27 

II.     QUESTING  TRUTH 

There  is  the  unifying  way  of  questing  for 
truth.  All  those  desiring  unity,  however  dif- 
ferent their  beliefs,  should  have  a  common 
quest — the  quest  for  truth — ^not  for  something 
to  support  either  their  creeds  or  their  doubts, 
but  for  truth.  Inherited  prejudice  is  blind- 
ing. Bessemer  said  that  he  could  not  have 
invented  his  revolutionising  iron-transforming 
process  if  he  had  been  an  iron-master.  The 
wise  man  is  benefited,  not  bound,  by  the  past. 
On  the  wall  of  a  great  reading  room  in  raised 
letters  are  the  words:  ** Whatsoever  things 
were  written  aforetime  were  written  for  our 
learning."  Similarily  placed,  on  the  opposite 
wall  are  the  words:  **Read  not  to  contradict 
nor  to  believe  but  to  weigh  and  consider.'* 
Both  legends  are  significant. 

At  one  part  of  the  ceremony  in  the  national 
eisteddfod  of  Wales,  the  bard,  unsheathing  his 
sword,  cries  out:  *^The  truth  against  the 
world. ' '  The  cry  of  both  scepticism  and  bigotry 
should  be :  '*  Amid  a  world  of  creeds  and  doubts 
the  truth,  the  truth!''  They  should  neither  be 
bullied,  nor  try  to  bully,  with  opprobrious 
names.  Believing  that  **the  worst  infidelity  is 
fear  for  the  truth,"  both  should  unite  in  this 
slogan  for  Truth: 


28     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

"Whether   old,   whether  new, 
We  will  ask:   Is  it  true?" 

It  does  not  make  for  progress  to  condone  the 
old  because  it  is  old,  or  to  condemn  the  new 
because  it  is  new.  The  freest  honest  investiga- 
tion should  not  be  feared.  It  should  be  fa- 
voured. The  honest  question  to  ask  is  not  is 
this  orthodox,  but  is  it  true  I  Not  is  it  in  keep- 
ing with  any  particular  creed,  but  does  it  cor- 
respond to  reality?  Not  is  this  the  view  of 
our  fathers;  but  is  it  the  truth  of  our  God? 
Eepeating  the  shibboleths  of  tradition  may  but 
win,  as  an  unenviable  epitaph,  Crabbers  coup- 
let: 

"Habit  with  him  was  all  the  test  of  truth. 
'It  must  be  right.    IVe  done  it  from  my  youth.'  *' 

Bigotry  must  be  distinguished  from  con- 
fidence. The  difference  is  illustrated  in  a  strik- 
ing scene  in  Ephesus:  **  Alexander  beckoned 
with  his  hand  and  would  have  made  a  defence 
unto  the  people.  But  when  they  perceived 
that  he  was  a  Jew,  all  with  one  voice  about  the 
space  of  two  hours  cried  out.  Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians.''  Bigotry,  represented  by 
the  Ephesian  devotees  of  Diana,  asserts  rather 
than  proves.  Confidence,  represented  by  Alex- 
ander, gladly  gives  its  reasons.    Bigotry  abso- 


The   Unifying  Way  29 

lutely  refuses  to  re-examine,  or  even  examine, 
into  the  grounds  of  some  at  least  of  the  views 
to  which  it  holds  fast.  Confidence,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  order  that  it  hold  fast  that  which  is 
good  and  only  that  which  is  good,  is  ready  to 
prove  all  things — ^whether  old,  whether  new. 

III.     FUNDAMENTAL  TRUTH  FIRST 

Lastly  there  is  the  unifying  way  of  quest- 
ing, first,  for  fundamental  truth,  or  truths. 
After  what  was  descrihed  as  a  *  ^veiled  retort 
to  the  higher  critics"  in  which  he  eloquently 
referred  to  his  literal  belief  still  in  the  story 
of  the  speech  by  Balaam's  ass  and  the  story 
of  Jonah  in  the  belly  of  a  fish.  Dr.  Campbell 
Morgan  was  followed  by  a  higher  critic.  Pro- 
fessor Peake.  ^^ Between  me  and  Dr.  Morgan," 
he  began,  *^  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  but  there 
is  solid  ground  beneath  the  gulf,  and  on  the 
deepest  things  I  believe  that  we  are  united." 
Professor  Peake 's  spirit  of  tolerance  is  the 
spirit,  and  his  deep  uniting  thought  is  the 
thought,  greatly  needed  today.  For  the  sake 
of  peace,  for  truth's  sake,  those  who  differ 
should  consider  first  the  *^ solid  ground"  of 
**the  deepest  things"  on  which  they  may  unite. 
First  things  should  be  made  first.  Another 
sentence    from   that   honest    doubter's   letter 


30     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

reads:  '^Most  of  the  religions  discussions  that 
I  hear  or  read  seem  to  me  to  deal  with  mere 
side-issues — ^why  young  men  don't  attend 
church — ^how  to  reach  the  masses — ^while  I  want 
to  hear  (and  never  do  hear)  about  the  funda- 
mental, elemental  principles  of  religion." 

In  view  of  the  evils  of  bigotry  ** side-issues'' 
should  be  avoided.  There  should  be  concen- 
tration on  *Hhe  fundamental,  elemental  prin- 
ciples of  religion"  and  the  minor  questions  in 
debate  practically  ignored.  The  woodsman 
comes  to  where  the  path  divides.  Taking  one 
branch,  he  finds,  later,  that  the  two  branches 
join  again.  So,  concerning  these  minor  divi- 
sions of  opinion,  there  is  a  better  and  a  worse, 
to  be  sure,  but  in  the  whole  course  of  man's 
way  through  the  difficult  woods  of  life  they  are 
hardly  worthy  of  a  second  thought.  For  the 
sake  of  souls  there  should  be  no  cavilling  over 
a  little  ornamentation  on  the  outside  of  the 
temple.  First  and  foremost  should  be  con- 
sidered the  question  of  the  great  foundation 
truths. 

In  view  of  the  evil  of  scepticism  it  should 
be  remembered  that,  as  Antaeus  was  invincible 
only  as  he  was  in  touch  with  mother-earth,  so 
scepticism  should  first  get  a  sure  standing 
ground  on  which  to  wrestle  with  its  doubts.  It 
should  not  bump  against  every  sunken  rook 


The  Unifying  Way  31 

along  the  way;  but  should  learn  as  quickly  as 
it  may  where  the  deep  water  is.  In  his  explora- 
tions in  the  North  Seas  Dr.  Kane  was  caught  in 
the  floating  ice.  Advance  seemed  impossible. 
An  iceberg,  however,  reaching  down  away  be- 
low the  floating  masses  of  ice  and  by  the  under- 
current carried  through  them,  came  toward  the 
hemmed-in  ship.  Came,  too,  the  thought:  if  I 
can  take  sure  hold  of  that  berg  it  will  carry 
Tis  through  this  surface  ice.  They  succeeded 
in  gripping  it  and  in  almost  clear  water  were 
carried  through.  To  scepticism,  so  beset  with 
floating  doubtsi  that  advance  seems  impossi- 
ble, comes  the  saving  thought:  See,  and  see- 
ing, grip  the  one  deep  truth  and  be  carried 
through. 

This,  then,  in  a  word,  is  the  unifying  direc- 
tion for  bigots,  sceptics,  and  the  rest  of  us — in 
all  humility  and  appreciative  tolerance  seek 
the  truth;  and,  first,  the  fundamental  truth. 
Through  it  be  delivered  from  disastrously 
wasteful  division?..  By  co-operating  there  be 
saved  from  the  tragedy  of  which  Hegel  wrote, 
the  tragedy  indeed,  where  the  conflict  is  not 
between  right  and  wrong,  but  between  right 
and  right.  To  aid  in  this  salvation  and  to  help 
to  Christian  co-operative  achievement  for  the 
,  weal  of  the  world,  is  the  aim  in  the  quest  that 


32     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

follows  for  Cliristianity's  unifying  fundamen- 
tal. 

The  quest  is  to  be,  in  a  large  measure,  an 
historical  one.  The  reason  is  that  history 
teaches  what  the  few  generations  of  one's  own 
observation  and  experience  are  not  long  enough 
to  work  out  in  the  how-to -live-rightly  labora- 
tory of  humanity.  In  showing  things  as  they 
were,  history  helps  one  to  live  aright  in  the 
presence  of  the  God  of  things  as  they  are.  In 
getting  in  behind  the  present  to  see  it  from 
the  other  side,  it  helps  to  estimate  the  rela- 
tive worth  of  its  differing  views.  It  thus  saves 
from  the  sectarian  illusions  that  make  moun- 
tains out  of  denominational  molehills.  It  saves 
one  from  putting  his  own  ideas  into  the  Bible 
and  then  asserting  dogmatically  that  they  are 
God's.  It  helps  him,  as  he  can  be  helped  in 
no  other  way,  to  appreciate  what  Christianity 
is,  to  get  a  true  perspective  of  its  truth,  to  see 
its  different  parts  in  their  true  proportions,  and 
to  distinguish  what  is  incidental  from  what  is 
fundamental. 

In  the  study,  for  instance,  of  the  ancient 
creeds  it  avoids  two  common  extremes.  The 
one  is  to  use  their  outworn  phraseology  still, 
but  so  to  modify  its  meaning  that  it  is  but 
galvanised  into  what,  at  best,  is  only  the  sem- 
blance of  life.     The  other  is  to  see  only  the 


The  Unifying  Way  33 

outgrown  thought-forms  in  which  the  creeds 
are  clothed  and  fail  to  get  the  great  truth,  or 
truths,  that  they  really  contain.  While  bigotry 
is  prone  to  go  to  the  former  extreme  and 
scepticism  to  the  latter,  history  helps  to  avoid 
both.  It  is,  therefore,  along  the  line  of  history 
that,  in  what  follows,  Christianity's  funda- 
mental will  be  sought  in  the  hope  of  finding  it 
unifying. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  KNOWABLENESS  OF  JESUS 

WHO  was  Jesus?  Since  even  tlie  fact  of 
his  existence  as  a  real  person  has  seri- 
ously been  questioned,  is  it  possible  to 
know  the  real  Jesus  ?  Let  it  be  said,  in  passing, 
that  the  argument  for  his  existence,  given  for 
instance  in  such  a  work  as  Professor  S.  J. 
Case's,  '^The  Historicity  of  Jesus,"  has  done 
away  forever  with  the  bogey  that  he  was  simply 
a  myth.  The  question  today  is  not:  **Was 
he?''  but  *'Who  was  he?"  The  problem  that 
remains  is  concerning  the  nature  and  degree 
of  what  is  surely  known  about  the  historic 
Jesus,  he  whose  coming  among  man  has  di- 
vided history  into  before  and  after — B.  0.  and 
A.D. 

I.      SOURCES  FOR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  JESUS 

The  Old  Testament  was  B.  C.  The  New 
Testament  was  A.  D.  For  the  very  noticeable 
difference  between  them  the  temporal  one  is 
important.      The    personal    one,    however,    is 

34 


The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  35 

more  important.  The  New  Testament  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  which  presupposes  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Old  Testament,  begins  with  the 
words:  **God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  nnto 
the  fathers  in  the  prophets  by  divers  portions 
and  in  divers  manners,  hath  at  the  end  of 
these  days  spoken  nnto  ns  in  his  Son."  It  is 
the  presence  and  influence  of  the  **Son''  that 
make  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  so 
different  from  that  of  the  Old  Testament. 
While  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  at  least  in 
substance,  were  his  Bible,  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures  have  him  as  their  theme  from  the 
earliest  of  them  to  the  very  last. 

The  order  in  which  they  now  are  arranged 
is  not  the  order  in  which  they  were  written. 
If  they  were  arranged  chronologically,  Paul's 
letters  would  appear  before  the  gospels.  Im- 
agine, therefore,  that  we  are  stepping  from  the 
Old  Testament  into  the  New  Testament  thus 
arranged,  and  are  beginning  with  Paul's  let- 
ters. What  would  strike  us  most  forcibly  of 
all?  Undoubtedly  the  most  striking  thing  would 
be  the  very  frequent  reference  to  Jesus.  Paul 
intended  them  to  be  sources  of  information 
about  Jesus.  As  personal  letters,  they,  of 
course,  are  sources  of  information  concerning 
Paul  himself.  Because  of  the  important  part 
PauPs  words  and  works  have  played  in  the 


36     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

spread  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  about 
Jesus,  after  giving  the  different  sources  for  the 
knowableness  of  Jesus,  we  shall  estimate  their 
value  by  comparing  them  with  the  sources  for 
the  knowableness  of  Paul. 

In  passing  let  it  be  said  we  have  practically 
no  source  for  the  distinctive  knowledge  of  Jesus 
physically.  In  Christian  art  the  representa- 
tions of  him  have  been  so  varied,  in  keeping 
with  the  thought  of  the  varying  times,  and  in 
Christian  literature  the  attempts  at  word  pic- 
tures of  him  are  so  evidently  doctrinal  and  un- 
historical  that  Jesus  *^ after  the  flesh''  is,  and 
must  remain,  unknown. 

Beginning  with  the  writings  not  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  our  sources  of  information 
concerning  Jesus  morally  and  religiously  are 
very  limited.  What  they  give,  while  interest- 
ing, because  of  the  very  fact  of  their  reference 
to  him,  nevertheless,  is  meagre.  It  attracts 
much  attention  to  them,  but  reflects  little  light 
on  him.  In  the  extensive  writings  of  his  great 
Jewish  contemporary,  Philo  of  Alexandria, 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  concerning  Jesus. 
It  is  suggestive,  further,  that  while  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Josephus  there  is  sympathetic  and  some- 
what extended  reference  to  John  the  Baptist, 
there  is  at  most  only  a  passing  allusion  to  Jesus. 
Of  the  several  references  to  him  it  is  generally 


The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  37 

^— — i— ^ii— ■^"^™— ^■■^^^^— ™~"™"™"       ^— ^-^^^-— ^— ^^^^^— ^— «»^»^^— .^.^^ 

agreed  that  the  chief  one  is  not  authentic.  The 
three  earliest  Roman  writers  who  mention  the 
Christian  faith  describe  it  as  a  harmful  super- 
stition, but  give  little  or  nothing  about  its 
founder,  save  his  existence,  time,  country,  and 
death.  In  1897  there  was  discovered  in  Egypt 
a  single  leaf  on  which  were  what  have  been 
called  *^The  New  Sayings  of  Jesus.''  For  a 
time  they  attracted  a  good  deal  of  varied  atten- 
tion. For  instance,  as  the  basis  of  his  poem, 
^'The  Toiling  of  Felix,''  Henry  Van  Dyke  used 

"Raise  the  stone,  and  thou  shalt  find  me;  cleave  the  wood, 
and  there  am  I," 

one  of  the  two  sentences  that  have  no  parallel 
in  the  New  Testament.  While  suggesting  many 
lines  of  thought,  these  *^new  sayings"  add 
nothing  to  our  knowledge  of  Jesus. 

It  is  in  the  New  Testament  that  we  must  look 
for  such  religious  expressions  as  will  make  him 
known.  There  the  name  *^ Jesus"  is  found 
nearly  one  thousand  times — ^very  frequently  in 
the  gospels,  often  in  the  Acts,  over  a  dozen 
times  in  the  Apocalypse,  and  repeatedly  in 
every  one  of  the  Epistles  save  the  one-chaptered 
Third  of  John,  which  instead  of  writing  **  Je- 
sus" refers  to  the  **Name."  Beside  these  very 
many  references  to  Jesus  by  his  personal  name, 


38     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

he  is  referred  to  hundreds  of  times  by  such 
titles  as  *  *  Christ"  and  *  *  Lord. ' '  The  whole  New 
Testament,  as  a  literature  about  Jesus,  from 
beginning  to  end,  is  pre-eminently  the  source 
for  the  knowledge  of  him.  Fortunately,  there- 
fore, it  is  in  the  hands,  or  easily  within  reach, 
of  all. 

Of  course  the  general  reader  of  the  English 
New  Testament  should  not  completely  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  he  is  reading  only  a  translation 
of  what  was  not  a  perfectly  exact  copy  of  any 
one  of  the  original  writings.  The  different 
writings  were  copied  again  and  again  with  the 
inevitable  changes,  for  many  reasons.  It  is 
the  work  of  textual  critics,  by  the  comparison 
of  the  many  different  copies  and  translations, 
to  get  back  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  original 
words.  One  of  their  difficult  problems  is  the 
ending  of  Mark.  A  commonly  known  instance 
of  their  work  is  the  removal  from  the  narrative 
itself,  back  into  the  margin,  from  which  proba- 
bly it  came  originally,  that  story  about  the  sin- 
ful woman.  In  a  number  of  passages  just  what 
the  exact  words  were  in  the  originals  is  still 
far  from  settled.  Not  only  because  of  the  tex- 
tual nature  of  their  work  but  also  because  the 
textual  critics  are  yet  not  at  one  in  their  meth- 
ods of  work,  there  is  no  prospect  of  a  complete 
agreement,  especially  in  matters  of  detail. 


The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  39 

Suffice  it  to  say,  however,  that,  in  the  number 
and  quality  of  documents  they  have  had  with 
which  to  work,  the  textual  critics  of  the  New 
Testament  have  been  in  a  much  better  position 
to  get  back  to  the  original  than  have  those  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Compared  with  the  number  of 
words  on  which  they  agree,  the  number  on 
which  they  disagree  need  not  worry  the  general 
reader.  The  fact  of  the  difference  is  mentioned 
here  only  to  help  him  avoid  being  dogmatic 
about  anything  that  depends  upon  a  word  or 
two  and  is  not  supported  by  a  trend  of  thought. 
If  on  his  guard  thus,  he  may  be  confident  that 
in  his  use  of  even  the  Authorised  Version  he 
is  getting  substantially  the  original  thought. 
Nevertheless,  he  should  remember  that,  in  be- 
ing translations  of  Greek  words  more  nearly  the 
same  as  the  original,  as  well  as  in  being  trans- 
lated better,  the  Revised  Version  and  other 
later  translations  are  much  superior  to  the 
King  James  Version  as  sources  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  Jesus. 

II.     COMPARED  WITH  THOSE  OF  PAUL 

To  evaluate  the  sources  for  Jesus,  it  is  well 
to  compare  them  with  those  for  Paul.  As  with 
Jesus  so  with  Paul,  outside  the  New  Testament 
the  sources  of  information  are  very  meagre.  An 


40     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

interesting  tradition  concerning  his  personal 
appearance  comes  from  the  second  centnry.  It 
is  found  ia  a  popular  romance  concerning  him 
and  Thecla,  a  betrothed  maiden,  who  became 
fascinated  by  hearing  him  teach  on  virginity. 
In  the  story  is  given  a  description  of  him.  He 
was  not  tall,  his  head  was  bald,  his  eyebrows 
met,  his  nose  was  long  and  his  legs  crooked; 
yet  he  was  full  of  grace,  now  like  a  man  and 
again  like  an  angel.  That  this  somewhat  un- 
flattering representation  of  him  is  drawn  by  an 
admirer  is  evidence  in  favour  of  its  truth.  Early 
Christian  art,  too,  seems  to  be  in  keeping  with 
this  representation.  It  is  likely  that,  like  Soc- 
rates, Paul  was  striking,  rather  than  hand- 
some, in  appearance.  Concerning  this  repre- 
sentation of  him,  therefore,  we  have  the  feel- 
ing that  we  are  on  surer  ground  than  with  the 
various  and  varying  traditions  concerning  the 
physical  appearance  of  Jesus. 

Coming  to  the  New  Testament,  outside  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  letters  claiming  to 
emanate  from  Paul,  there  is  only  one  reference 
to  him  and  that  in  the  very  late  Epistle  of  Sec- 
ond Peter.  It  rates  the  epistles  of  *'our  be- 
loved brother  PauP'  very  highly  as  sacred  writ- 
ings, putting  them  in  the  same  class  with  **the 
other  scriptures.''  While  the  first  half  of  Acts 
refers  mainly  to  Peter,  the  second  half  refers 


The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  41 

mainly  to  Paul.  Among  the  number  of  speeches 
imbedded  there,  most  of  them  are  represented 
as  coming  from  his  lips.  While,  thus,  the  sec- 
ond part  of  the  Acts  may  be  considered  as  be- 
ing, for  the  study  of  Paul,  what  any  one  of  the 
gospels  is  for  the  study  of  Jesus,  nevertheless, 
it  is  only  of  secondary  importance  compared 
with  the  Epistles  of  Paul  himself.  In  them  w^ 
have  firsthand  sources.  Though  there  is  con- 
siderable difference  of  opinion  about  how  many 
of  the  epistles  in  the  New  Testament  are  his, 
there  is  general  agreement  that  a  number  (and 
they  the  most  important)  are  from  his  hand. 
How  often  have  New  Testament  scholars 
wished  that  they  could  read  some  book,  or  even 
a  letter,  from  Jesus  himself!  However,  not  a 
single  line  from  his  hand  has  come  down 
through  the  ages.  The  removal  of  the  story  of 
the  woman  taken  in  sin  takes  away  from  the 
Scripture  the  only  instance  of  even  a  reference 
to  any  writing  by  Jesus.  The  written  expres- 
sions of  his  religious  life  come  from  the  hands 
of  his  friends.  They  come,  thus,  not  only  col- 
oured by  those  times  and  circumstances,  but 
blended  with  the  expressions  of  the  religious 
lives  of  these  friends  who  wrote  of  him  in  lov- 
ing adoration.  While,  therefore,  on  the  one 
hand  it  is  true  that  in  the  New  Testament  we 
have  much  more  about  Jesus  than  about  Paul, 


42     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

yet,  on  the  other  hand,  while  we  have  not  a 
single  line  of  literature  written  by  Jesus,  we 
have  a  body  of  important  letters  from  Paul.  To 
this  must  be  added  the  fact  that  while  these 
letters  accordingly  were  contemporary  with 
Paul,  the  earliest  New  Testament  books  about 
Jesus  date  from  over  a  decade  after  the  cruci- 
fixion and  the  latest  a  number  of  decades  later 
stiU. 


III.      THE  ESSENTIAL  JESUS   KNOWABLE 

In  view  of  all  this  some,  recognising  his  his- 
toricity but  declining  *^to  express  any  opinion 
as  to  any  detail  about  the  personal  life''  of 
Jesus,  fail  to  appreciate  the  wonderful  possi- 
bility of  finding  the  very  essence  of  Jesus'  own 
religious  life.  It  is  true,  as  has  been  seen,  that 
he  is  not  knowable  physically.  But  is  he  not 
knowable  morally  and  religiously?  Is  not  the 
essential  Jesus  knowable? 

Professor  Bacon's  answer  meets  the  situa- 
tion luminously:  ** Religion  does  require  a  true 
portrait;  and  therefore  every  attainable  trait 
of  historical  realism  will  be  welcome.  But  it 
does  not  require  a  physical  portrait.  What  it 
needs  to  know  is  the  spiritual  and  moral  ele- 
ment in  the  character  of  Jesus.  And  the  spirit 
survives.    A  man's  contemporaries  are  doubt- 


The  Knowubleness  of  Jesus  43 

less  far  better  qualified  than  later  generations 
to  give  the  sensuous  testimony  of  eye  and  ear. 
The  lapse  of  but  a  few  years  will  suffice  in  case 
of  even  the  greatest  men  to  obliterate  the  mem- 
ory of  mere  physical  characteristics  unless 
memory  be  sustained  by  art.  But  for  spiritual 
portraiture  the  later  generation  is  apt  to  be 
the  better  qualified.  On  points  of  character  we 
may  often  better  rely  on  the  judgment  of  the 
second  or  third  generation  than  on  that  of  the 
first.  ...  It  is  so  with  the  character  of  Jesus. 
The  traits  which  remain  are  traits  of  moral  and 
religious  value,  for  the  obvious  reason  that 
those  who  became  his  disciples  were  concerned 
with  these  values,  and  only  these.  But  the  sub- 
ordination— ^yes,  even  to  disappearance — of  the 
physical  and  temporary  is  far  from  invalidat- 
ing the  historicity  of  the  spiritual  and  moral. 
It  proves  only  the  relative  unimportance  of  the 
external. ' ' 

The  nature  of  the  records  through  which 
comes  the  revelation  of  the  character  of  Jesus 
and  the  way  in  which  those  records  originated 
may  well  call  attention  to  the  relative  unim- 
portance of  the  external.  They  suggest  the  folly 
of  magnifying  the  temporal  at  the  expense  of 
the  eternal,  the  details  at  the  expense  of  the 
big  things  of  religion  and  life.  They  support 
the  increasing  cry  of  thoughtful  Christians  to- 


44     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

day — the  big  things  of  Jesus  for  the  big,  abid- 
ing things  of  life.  This  is  shown  in  the  remark- 
able adaptability  of  their  expression  of  these 
big  things.  Because,  as  has  been  seen,  nothing 
in  the  New  Testament  records  concerning  Jesus 
was  written  by  himself,  their  expression  of  his 
religious  life  can  hardly  have  the  rigidity  that 
it  would  have  had  if  from  his  own  hand.  Again, 
the  fact  that  there  are  a  number  of  different 
representations  of  his  religious  life,  found  not 
only  in  the  four  gospels  but  also  in  the  rest  of 
the  New  Testament,  militates  against  an  in- 
flexibility in  any  one  expression.  Yet,  again, 
the  fact  that  much  of  the  expression  is  in  fig- 
urative language  prevents  it  from  too  closely 
defining  and  confining  the  meaning,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  makes  the  meaning  vivid  and 
suggestive.  Still  further,  the  absence  from  it 
of  theological  abstractions,  ecclesiastical  tech- 
nicalities, and  philosophic  subtleties  has  per- 
mitted its  fundamentally  human  appeal  univer- 
sally to  find  the  human  heart. 

Dr.  E.  F.  Scott  has  expressed  it  well :  * '  The  vi- 
tality of  our  religion  during  all  these  ages  has 
been  due  in  no  small  measure  to  this,  that  Jesus 
never  sought  to  express  his  meaning  in  ab- 
stract theological  form.  If  he  had  spoken  in  the 
languages  of  the  creeds,  his  message  would 
long  ago  have  become  obsolete,  beyond  hope  of 


The  Knowableness  of  Jesus  45 

revival.  But  he  availed  himself  of  the  plastic 
forms  of  the  current  eschatology;  and  these 
have  never  ceased  to  retain  their  place  along- 
side of  the  theological  doctrines.  Each  new 
generation  has  felt  itself  free  to  associate  its 
own  deepest  thoughts  and  longings  with  that 
hope  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  has  been 
given  by  Jesus.  To  one  age  it  has  meant  an 
inward  realisation  of  the  divine  life,  to  another 
the  union  of  all  mankind  in  a  spiritual  com- 
monwealth, to  another  the  perfecting  of  the  so- 
cial order  on  a  basis  of  justice  and  liberty. 
These  ideals,  and  others  like  them,  were  all 
implicit  in  the  conception  of  Jesus;  and  by 
clothing  his  message  in  the  apocalyptic  imagery 
he  imparted  it  in  all  its  richness  and  compre- 
hensiveness. However  we  remould  it,  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  own  needs  and  our  own  out- 
look on  the  world,  we  can  still  give  effect  to 
his  purpose.  *' 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  IMMEDIACY  OF  GOD 

I.     THE  DIVERGENCE  OF  SCIENCE  AND 
THEOLOGY 

GOD'S  in  his  heaven,"  sang  Browning's 
Pippa.  But  where  is  *^ heaven,''  in 
modern  thought?  Here  is  a  devout 
soul  who  in  his  morning  prayer  looks  up  to 
heaven.  In  his  devotions  at  night,  also,  he 
looks  up  to  heaven  in  addressing  God.  But, 
because  of  the  rotation  of  the  earth,  at  the 
different  times  that  he  looks  up  to  heaven  he 
looks  in  very  opposite  directions.  *^Up"  in  the 
morning  is  **down"  at  night,  as  far  as  any  ma- 
terial location  is  concerned.  Science,  in  telling 
modern  man  that  the  earth  is  round  and  rotates 
on  its  axis,  takes  away  from  him  any  absolute 
up  and  down  as  far  as  any  definite  place  out- 
side the  earth  is  concerned.  In  changing  from 
the  ancient  ideas  of  the  universe,  including  the 
idea  of  waters  above  a  windowed  firmament 
called  Heaven  (Gen.  1 :8)  it  has  taken  away  also 

46 


The  Immediacy  of  God  47 

a  literal,  local  heaven  as  the  dwelling  place 
of  God. 

Modern  science,  too,  has  changed  man's  con- 
ception of  the  activities  of  nature.  Until  com- 
paratively recent  times  changes  in  nature  were 
looked  upon  as  due  to  the  direct  fiat  of  the  God 
of  heaven.  But,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  sci- 
ence made  the  revolutionary  discovery  that  nat- 
ural forces  acted  according  to  fixed  laws.  Know- 
ing these,  it  could  tell  why  certain  things  have 
taken  place  and  could  foretell,  with  reasons, 
that  other  things  would  take  place  in  the  phys- 
ical world. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  discovery  theology 
looked  upon  these  natural  forces  working  ac- 
cording to  fixed  laws,  as  secondary  causes.  It 
looked  upon  God,  however,  as  the  Creator  of 
the  world.  He  was  the  First  Great  Cause.  In 
addition  to  creating  and  starting  the  universe 
as  a  great  machine,  the  thought  was  that,  from 
without,  he  could,  and  did,  intervene  in  a  spe- 
cial way  to  talk  to  his  people  or  to  do  some 
great  deed.  This  special  breaking  into  nature's 
order  was  looked  upon  as  spiritual  and  sacred ; 
while  all  the  rest  was  natural  and  secular. 
God's  work  was  then  simply  to  fill  in  the  gaps 
that  science  did  not  explain.  In  the  world,  ordi- 
narily, while  there  were  some  suggestions  con- 
cerning its  Creator  (some  natural  revelation) 


48     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

yet  to  feel  his  presence  required  tlie  special 
revelation  of  the  unnatural,  the  unusual,  the 
spectacular,  the  miraculous  filling  in,  or  the 
making  of  gaps.  The  breaking  through  was  in 
different  ways.  By  many,  and  often  through 
the  Christian  centuries,  it  was  claimed  that  God 
spoke  to  them  with  an  authoritative,  audible 
voice;  by  large  numbers  of  others  the  claim 
was  that  he  revealed  the  truth  through  an  in- 
fallible church;  and  by  many  others,  through 
an  inerrant  book. 

For  a  time  science  was  willing  for  theology  to 
call  these  natural  forces  secondary  causes  and 
affirm  that  outside  of  nature  was  God — The 
First  Great  Cause.  Later,  as  engrossed  with 
secondary  causes,  scientists,  by  increasing  dis- 
coveries, were  able  to  fill  in  gap  after  gap  in  a 
natural  way,  in  increasingly  large  numbers  they 
said  there  was  no  breaking  through  into  the  nat- 
ural order;  and,  accordingly,  they  had  no  need 
of  God  in  their  scientific  systems.  As  a  result 
there  was  waged  a  long-protracted  conflict  with 
the  theologians,  notably  concerning  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis.  This  **  prolonged  civil 
war,  pitiful  and  useless  and  demoralising''  as 
described  in  Andrew  D.  White's  *'The  Conflict 
of  Science  and  Theology"  shows  how  theolo- 
gians have  tried,  but  in  vain,  to  check  the  be- 
ginnings of  progress  in  the  difiPerent  sciences. 


The  Immediacy  of  God  49 

According  to  Huxley,  **  Extinguished  theolo- 
gians lie  about  the  cradle  of  every  science  like 
the  strangled  snakes  about  that  of  Hercules/' 

The  nineteenth  century  was  pre-eminently 
the  century  of  this  conflict.  It  was  early  in  the 
century  that  Laplace,  in  answer  to  a  question 
from  Napoleon  concerning  the  absence  of  God 
from  that  astronomer's  great  work,  replied: 
**Sire,  I  had  no  need  of  any  such  hypothesis." 
Scientists  invidiously  distinguished  science,  as 
something  based  solely  on  ** common  sense," 
from  theology,  as  something  that  was  compelled 
to  resort  to  *^faith."  The  concept  of  God  was 
conceded  to  theology  as,  at  best,  only  a  symbol, 
whereas  science  had  to  do  with  matter — some- 
thing that  was  real.  Matter  (with  motion)  was 
the  great  reality  and  explained  all.  In  fact, 
in  the  first  part  of  the  century  it  was  held  that 
thought  itself  was  secreted  from  the  brain  as 
bile  from  the  liver.  Early  in  the  second  half 
of  the  century,  with  the  publication  of  Dar- 
win's **The  Origin  of  Species"  in  1859,  there 
arose,  over  evolution,  the  greatest  controversy 
of  the  century.  There  were  many  others  occa- 
sioned by  archeology,  historical  criticism,  the 
comparative  study  of  religion,  etc.  Speaking 
generally,  in  the  nineteenth  century  there  were 
two  opposite  camps,  in  one  of  which  were  the- 
ologians dogmatically  unscientific,  in  the  other, 


50     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

scientists  dogmatically  materialistic.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  century,  however,  there  was  a 
marked  converging — with  the  result  that  sci- 
ence has  become  less  materialistic,  theology 
more  scientific,  and  both  less  dogmatic. 

II.     THE  CONVERGENCE  OF  SCIENCE  AND 
THEOLOGY 

Notable  has  been  the  change  of  science  in  the 
matter  of  dogmatism.  Aided  by  philosophy, 
broad-minded  scientists  in  increasing  numbers 
have  come  to  see  that  after  all  science  does  not 
know,  and  is  not  likely  to  know,  all  mysteries; 
that  it  is  based  upon  assumptions ;  and  that  it, 
too,  has  to  exercise  faith.  In  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  July,  1915,  an  article  by  John  Bur- 
roughs, manifestly  far  from  prejudiced  in  fa- 
vour of  prevalent  theology,  begins  thus :  *^  Scien- 
tific faith  is  no  more  smooth  sailing  than  is  theo- 
logical faith.  One  involves  about  as  many  mys- 
teries, as  many  unthinkable  truths  as  the 
other. ' '  In  an  earlier  number  of  the  same  mag- 
azine, in  an  article  on  *^ Science  and  Mystery,'' 
Professor  Fosdick  says:  **No  one  has  put  it 
better  than  the  President  of  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology:  *  Science  is  grounded 
in  faith  just  as  is  religion,  and  the  scientific 
truth,  like  the  religious  truth,  consists  of  hy- 


The  Immediacy  of  God  51 

potheses  never  wholly  verified  that  fit  the  facts 
more  or  less  closely.'  ''  A  physicist  epigram- 
matically  put  it  thus:  *^A11  nature  reduces  it- 
self to  matter,  all  matter  to  electrons,  all  elec- 
trons to  ether,  and  all  ether  to  an  hypothesis." 
Another  notable  thing  about  modern  scien- 
tists is  their  growing  recognition  that  the  older 
materialistic  conception  of  the  universe  is  in- 
adequate. It  is  evident  that  many  of  them  ap- 
preciate that,  as  the  music  of  Paganini's  violin 
is  not  fully  explained  scientifically  when  ex- 
plained materialistically  as  due  to  the  *^  scrap- 
ing of  horse's  tails  on  cat's  bowels,"  so  the 
universe — including  man  with  his  appreciation 
of  rhythm  and  beauty,  his  ineffably  high  long- 
ings, his  prayers,  his  loves  and  his  sacrifices — 
is  not  to  be  adequately  explained  scientifically 
merely  in  materialistic  terms.  Indeed  a  modern 
naturalist  protests  that,  ^^  there  is  something 
genuinely  brutish  in  materialism"  because,  as 
he  says,  **It  means  that  the  higher  attributes 
of  man's  nature  are  never  taken  at  their  face 
value;  they  are  nothing  but  manifestations  of 
something  lower  down  and  more  elemental  in 
the  scale  of  beings."  Materialistic  philosophy, 
which  recent  history  assuredly  shows  makes 
for  ^^the  genuinely  brutish,"  does  not  make 
for,  nor  does  it  adequately  explain,  the  higher 
life  of  man.     This  lesson  increasingly  is  com- 


52     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

iiig  home  to  science  today.  Along  this  line  of 
the  less  materialistic  trend  of  thought  among 
modern  scientists  it  will  be  enough  to  add  that 
many  of  them,  in  accepting  for  a  unifying  ex- 
planation of  the  universe  the  hypothesis  of  an 
^  ^  ether, ' '  give  it  many  of  the  characteristics  that 
theologians  have  used  in  describing  God. 
Haeckel,  who  goes  the  length  of  identifying 
chemical  repulsion  with  hate  and  chemical  affin- 
ity with  love,  himself  suggests  that  this  **  cos- 
mic ether  is  God.'*  All  this  makes  for  the 
peace-making  conviction  that  often  the  differ- 
ence between  theologians  affirming  belief  in 
God,  and  scientists  who  do  not,  is  largely  a  mat- 
ter of  terms.  In  fact,  Evolution,  Creative  Evo- 
lution, etc.,  to  many  are  but  names  for  God. 

"A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 

A  crystal  and  a  cell, — 
A  jellyfish  and  a  saurian 

And  caves  where  the  cavemen  dwell; 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty, 

And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod, — 
Some  call  it  Evolution, 

And  others  call  it  God." 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  Edison  is  quoted  as  saying:  *^No  one  can 
study  chemistry  and  see  the  wonderful  way  in 
which  certain  elements  combine  with  the  nicety 


The  Immediacy  of  God  53 

of  the  most  delicate  machine,  and  not  come  to 
the  inevitable  conclusion  that  there  is  a  master 
intelligence  controlling  them. ' '  The  suggestive 
article  from  which  the  above  is  taken  quotes, 
against  the  older  materialism,  Tyndall,  Spen- 
cer, Le  Conte,  Fiske,  Wundt,  James,  and  Pear- 
son, with  whose  inspiring  words  it  closes  thus : 
**Not  to  convert  the  world  into  a  dead  mechan- 
'  ism,  but  to  give  to  humanity  in  the  future  a 
religion  worthy  its  intellect,  seems  to  me  the 
mission  which  modem  science  has  before  it." 
That  this  is  the  view  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is 
well  known.  This  also  was  the  view  of  Lord 
Kelvin.  In  1903,  after  many  years  of  scientific 
toil  that  put  him  in  the  first  rank  of  scientists, 
he  wrote :  **  We  are  absolutely  forced  by  science 
to  believe  with  perfect  confidence  in  a  directive 
power — in  an  influence  other  than  a  physical  or 
dynamical  or  electrical  force."  Once  in  con- 
versation, quoting  in  French  that  oft-quoted 
saying  of  Laplace  about  having  no  need  of  the 
hypothesis  of  God,  he  added:  **Well,  I  find 
that  I  have  constant  need  of  that  *  hypothesis.'  " 
Speaking  generally,  therefore,  concerning  the 
attitude  of  science  to  theology  today,  it  may  be 
said  that  while,  especially  among  scientists  who 
do  not  understand  the  spirit  of  modem  theol- 
ogy, there  is  still  a  feeling  of  antagonism,  it  is 
nevertheless  enheartening  to  Christian  leaders 


54     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

to  find  that  from  recognised  leaders  in  science 
there  comes  much  that  makes  not  simply  for 
peace  but  for  positive  aid.  In  fact,  Professor 
David  Smith  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  *^In  recent 
years  science  has,  albeit  unintentionally,  proved 
herself  the  handmaid  of  theolog}^;  and  Dr.  S. 
D.  McConnell  hardly  exaggerates  when  he  af- 
firms in  his  *  Evolution  and  Immortality,'  *that 
Darwin  and  the  martyrs  of  natural  science  have 
done  more  to  make  the  word  of  Christ  intelligi- 
ble than  have  Augustine  and  the  theologians. '  ' ' 
Science  is  helping  the  moderns  to  a  Christ- 
like conception  of  life  and  of  God.  This  is  very 
remarkably  so  in  two  outstanding  thoughts  that 
the  study  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  shows  to  have 
characterised  it.  One  characteristic  of  Jesus' 
own  religion  was  that  it  was  ethical.  The  im- 
partiality of  the  scientific  laws  of  nature  is 
bringing  home  to  men's  souls  the  lessons  Jesus 
taught  concerning  sin.  The  fact  that  **  science 
is  not  soft"  helps  men  to  appreciate  the  ethical 
iron  in  the  life  blood  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus. 
A  second  outstanding  thought  characteristic  of 
Jesus'  own  religion  was  the  thought  of  the  im- 
mediacy and  intimate  nearness  of  God,  the 
sense  of  oneness  with  Him.  This,  also,  is 
strongly  supported  by  science.  In  fact,  science 
has  so  dominated  the  times  with  its  thought  of 
the  immediacy,  the  immanency,  of  an  energy 


The  Immediacy  of  God  55 

that  produces  the  phenomena  we  call  nature, 
that  it  seems  almost  like  a  prophet  sent  to  re- 
discover and  reinterpret  the  message  of  Jesus 
concerning  God. 

While  the  scientists  have  come  toward  the 
theologians,  the  theologians  have  gone  toward 
the  scientists.  In  increasingly  large  numbers 
they,  too,  have  learned  the  wisdom  of  humility. 
One  of  the  greatest  of  them  has  written,  **We 
aim  to  be  faithful  to  our  human  ignorance.'^ 
History  has  taught  them  the  folly  of  being  un- 
scientific. Under  the  various  modern  influ- 
ences, including  with  science  the  growth  of  the 
democratic  spirit,  the  teaching  of  the  typically 
modem  theologian  is  concerning,  or  in  keep- 
ing with,  the  thought  of  divine  immanence. 
**  Where  is  GodT'  The  scientist  who  is  Chris- 
tian and  the  theologian  who  is  scientific  unite 
in  corroborating  the  statement  that  God  is  not 
far  from  each  one  of  us;  for  in  God  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being.  '*We  are  the 
white  corpuscles  of  the  cosmos,  we  do  serve  and 
form  part  of  an  immanent  Deity,"  is  the  sug- 
gestive figure  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  who  as  aa 
eminent  scientist,  who  is  also  a  Christian, 
writes :  **That  is  the  lesson  science  has  to  teach 
theology — to  look  for  the  action  of  Deity,  if 
at  all,  then  always;  not  in  the  past  alone,  nor 
only  in  the  future,  but  equally  in  the  present. 


56     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

If  His  action  is  not  visible  now,  it  never  will 
be  and  never  has  been  visible.  .  .  .  We  can  see 
Him  now  if  we  look;  if  we  cannot  see,  it  is  only 
that  onr  eyes  are  shut.'*  This  is  the  lesson  of 
the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus. 


CHAPTER  V; 
THE  TRINITY  TRUTH 

WITH  the  guidance  of  history,  the  aim  in 
this  chapter  will  be,  without  bumping 
against  the  rock  of  bigotry  or  being 
caught  in  the  whirlpool  of  scepticism,  to  find 
the  deep  middle  way  of  truth  in  the  dangerous 
doctrine  of  the  trinity. 

I.      THE  TRINITY  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED 

Perhaps  the  most  resented  change  in  the  Re- 
vised Version  of  the  Bible  was  the  omission  of 
the  so-called  trinitarian  text,  I  John  5:7.  It 
does  not  follow,  however,  that  the  truth  of  the 
trinity  is  not  in  the  Bible  because  the  formu- 
lated doctrine  is  not  found  there.  The  sug- 
gestive story  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  at  the 
beginning  of  his  ministry  and  the  baptismal 
formula  at  its  close,  together  with  the  three- 
fold benediction  of  Paul,  the  Fourth  Gospel's 
representation  of  Jesus  as  the  pre-existent 
Logos,  and  other  scripture,  formed  a  basis  for 
the  doctrine  that  in  the  early  Christian  cen- 

57 


^8     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

turies  was  formulated  in  the  trinitarian  creeds 
of  Greek  pMlosophy. 

With  the  outgrowing  of  the  philosophy  that 
had  made  it  acceptable  to  the  Greek  mind,  the 
doctrine  was  enforced  by  the  authority  of  the 
Church.  Many  minds,  and  increasingly,  hav0 
found  it  so  difficult  to  accept  that  it  has  made 
much  for  scepticism  in  Christendom  and  for 
less  effective  work  among  such  religionists  as 
Mohammedans  and  Jews.  The  Mohammedans, 
for  instance,  against  what  they  consider  the 
three  Gods  of  Christianity  have  confidently  as- 
serted that  there  is  but  one  God  and  Mohammed 
is  his  prophet.  Modern  Christian  scholars, 
however,  in  tearing  away  its  now  useless  husks 
are  making  the  central  truth  of  the  trinity  more 
evident  to  the  scepticism  of  Christendom  and 
are  opening  up  a  better  way  of  approach  to  the 
Mohammedans  and  Jews.  Today,  therefore,  in- 
stead of  making  for  division,  the  doctrine  of  the 
trinity  has  so  deepened  that  through  it  men  are 
helped  to  find  Christianity's  unifying  funda- 
mental. In  the  light  of  today,  instead  of  quar- 
relling over  the  old  terms,  men  may  unite  on  the 
fundamental  truth.  By  getting  down  more 
deeply  into  it  they  find  themselves  at  one. 

It  is  easy  to  speak  disparagingly  of  the  early 
trinitarian  creeds;  but  anyone  who  will  take 
the  pains  to  put  himself  back  into  their  times 


The  Trinity   Truth  59 

will  be  impressed  with  the  fact  of  the  great 
human  need  they  thought  to  meet.  Jesus  was 
a  Jew.  The  Fourth  Gospel,  however,  repre- 
sents him  in  terms  of  Greek  philosophy.  The 
task,  therefore,  of  the  theologians  who  wrote 
the  trinitarian  creeds  was  that  of  blending  the 
Jewish  and  the  Greek,  the  moral  and  the  mys- 
tical, the  practical  and  the  philosophical  into 
a  consistent  whole  that  would  conserve  the  sep- 
arate religious  values  of  each  for  the  needy 
human  soul.  Back  of  all  their  outgrown  philos- 
ophy, back  even  of  their  selfish  politics  and  their 
theological  heat,  hate,  and  cruel  bigotry,  was 
the  human  cry  for  a  mighty,  gracious  God  in 
whom  they  might  live,  move,  and  have  their  be- 
ing— a  great,  good  God  who  cared. 

To  meet  this  same  human  need  the  scientific 
theologian  today,  in  keeping  with  the  changed 
thinking  and  phraseology  of  today,  presents  the 
heart-meaning  of  the  trinity — the  meaning  that 
is  at  its  heart  and  appeals  to  the  human  heart. 
The  very  figure  implied  in  it,  a  figure  taken 
from  the  fundamental  social  group — the  human 
family — is  one  that  finds  the  heart  of  man.  But 
what  is  the  heart- truth  in  this  figure?  Ex- 
pressed in  Christian  terms  acceptable  today, 
what  is  the  abiding  truth  at  the  heart  of  the 
ancient  trinitarian  creeds? 


6o     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

II.     JESUS  AS  IMMANUEL 

A  great  cathedral  is  never  decorated  like  a 
sxunmer  cottage  on  a  gala  day.  Its  greatness 
demands  simplicity — simplicity  in  the  presence 
of  the  sublime.  The  heart-meaning  of  the  trin- 
ity is  a  theme  sublime.  It  demands  simplicity. 
In  its  presence  we  consider  simply  the  Christian 
snggestiveness  of  one  great  word — Immannel. 

It  is  found  thrice  in  the  Bible — twice  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  once  in  the  New  Testament. 
As  used  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  Hebrews 
it  has  a  Hebrew  meaning.  As  quoted  in  the 
New  Testament  of  the  Christians  it  has  a  dis- 
tinctively Christian  meaning.  Its  one  use  in 
the  New  Testament  is  as  a  name  of  Him  most 
commonly  called  Jesus.  As  such  it  is  descrip- 
tive rather  than  personal.  The  personal  name 
was  Jesus — the  name  his  comrades  used  of 
Mm,  the  name  his  mother  called  him,  with  the 
love-light  in  her  eye  and  the  wonder  in  her 
heart.  The  Old  Testament  furnishes  an  inter- 
esting parallel.  The  personal  name  of  David's 
son  and  successor  was  Solomon  and,  like  the 
name  of  Jesus,  it  was  often  used.  A  descriptive 
name  of  Solomon  was  Jedidiah,  and  like  Im- 
manuel,  was  used  but  once.  Jedidiah  means  Be- 
loved of  Jehovah.  As  a  descriptive  name  what 
is  the  meaning  of  Immanuel?     The  word  di- 


The   Trinity   Truth  6 1 

vides  into  two  unequal  parts.  The  first  three 
syllables,  '^Immanu/'  mean:  with  us.  The  last 
syllable,  ^^El,''  means:  God.  It  is  found  fre- 
quently in  suggestive  names  such  as  Beth-el, 
house  of  God;  Penu-el,  face  of  God;  Isra-el, 
God  strives  or  perseveres.  Matthew  1:23  ac- 
cordingly reads :  ^*  And  they  shall  call  his  name 
Immanuel:  which  is,  being  interpreted,  God 
with  us.'' 

**Immanu"^with  us.  A  lowly  manger  and 
its  babe.  Bone  of  our  bone,  flesh  of  our  flesh, 
was  he.  A  boy  in  joyous  play,  a  man  with  adze 
and  saw,  a  traveller  hungry  and  athirst,  a  mis- 
sioner  weary  as  we  ourselves  are  weary,  tired 
out  in  doing  good,  doing  good  but  weary.  *^  With 
us'':  He  too  was  tempted.  ^^With  us!"  ^*He 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister. ' ' 
^^With  us!"  They  said  of  him  in  days  agone 
that  he  was  'Houched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
infirmities."  *^With  us!"  ^*Yes,"  have  cried 
myriads  of  Christian  hearts  throughout  the 
centuries,  *^and  as  one  of  us,  Thou  sympathetic 
Son  of  man!" 

**E1,"  God.  Ears  and  eyes  and  hearts  are 
opened  to  the  wonderful  life  and  its  wonderful 
eiiects.  What  a  story  of  his  earthly  ministry 
by  river,  lake,  and  mountain,  on  city  street  and 
countryside,  modern  students  read!  They  see 
him  upon  the  heights  of  power.    They  catch  the 


62     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

thrill  of  Ms  holy  indignation.  They  feel  the 
spell  of  his  unselfishness.  They  hear  and  see 
the  many  manifestations  of  love  supreme.  And, 
as  from  place  to  place  they  follow,  touched  by 
the  spell  of  vital,  vitalising  word  and  deed  no 
wonder  they  exclaim :  Snch  a  ministry  is  not  the 
result  of  chance.  A  study  of  the  humanity  of 
Jesus  deepens  the  conviction  that  however  much 
there  is  of  seeming  chaos  in  this  old  world  of 
ours,  it  must  be  a  Bethel.  ^*  Surely  God  is  in 
this  place."  The  high  human  values  in  Jesus 
make  for  religious  belief  in  others.  As  to  the 
best  of  their  ability  they  seek  to  get  back  of 
the  gospels  into  the  life  that  Jesus  actually 
lived,  they  find  themselves  trying  to  explain  the 
mystery  of  his  personality  and,  in  doing  so  un- 
der the  influence  of  the  modern  emphasis  upon 
immanence,  make  progress  to  an  unshakable 
conviction  concerning  the  appropriateness  of 
the  name  Inmianuel  as  applied  to  him. 

A  first  visit  to  the  Boston  Public  Library,  to 
study  an  intricate  creation  of  his  art  that  Sar- 
gent had  put  upon  a  ceiling  there,  was  a  fail- 
ure, because  of  the  difficulty  in  looking  up.  In 
a  second  visit  a  large  mirror  was  found  beneath 
the  work.  As  a  result  the  hidden  meaning  was 
more  naturally  studied  and  more  easily  under- 
stood. In  the  thought  of  the  early  Church,  Je- 
sus, as  Immanuel,  was  like  a  mirror  to  God. 


The  Trinity  Truth  63 

Accordingly  the  mysteriousness  of  deity  was 
more  naturally  studied  and  better  understood. 
It  is  an  interesting  study.  The  character  of 
Jesus  during  his  life  directly  (and  afterwards 
through  their  thought  of  him  as  Christ)  had 
much  to  do  with  shaping  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  God.  As  a  Galilean  mechanic  before  the 
days  of  his  public  ministry,  Jesus  moving  about 
in  the  circle  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances, 
by  his  lips,  but  especially  by  his  life,  his  char- 
acter, must  have  changed  their  thought  of  God. 
It  was  thus  he  expressed  his  thought  of  God 
throughout  his  ministry.  In  the  beginning  of 
Hebrews,  where  it  reads  that  God  hath  spoken 
in  his  Son,  who  is  *'the  effulgence  of  his  glory 
and  the  very  image  of  his  substance, ' '  the  word 
for  * '  image ' '  is  that  which,  transliterated,  gives 
the  word  character.  According  to  this  Jesus 
was  the  very  character  of  God.  In  its  repre- 
sentations of  him  as  revealing  the  Father  the 
Fourth  Gospel  quotes  him  as  saying:  **He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father.''  To  the 
early  Christians  in  the  character  of  Jesus  God 
was  specially  revealed. 

III.     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  AS  IMMANUEL 

Jesus  died.    Did  Immanuel  lose  its  Christian 
meaning  on  the  knoll  of  Calvary? 


64     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

"Now  he  is  dead.     Far  hence  he  lies 
In  the  lorn   Syrian  town; 
And  on  his  grave,  with  shining  eyes 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down." 

Was  tliat  all?  By  no  means.  His  followers 
believed  that  it  was  because  he  lived  the  mean- 
ingfulness  of  Immannel  that  he  was  put  to 
death.  For  the  same  reason,  after  his  death, 
they  viewed  him  as  the  wonderful  prophet  ex- 
alted by  God  to  be  both  Lord  and  Christ,  and 
as  such  revealing  God.  In  the  eighth  chapter 
of  Eomans  Paul  wrote:  *^But  ye  are  not  in 
the  flesh  but  in  the  Spirit,  if  so  be  that  the 
Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you.  But  if  any  man 
hath  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his. 
And  if  Christ  be  in  you,  the  body  is  dead  be- 
cause of  sin."  Keeping  in  mind  that  back  of 
Paul's  exalted  but  indwelling  Christ  was  Jesus, 
called  Immanuel,  his  practical  identifying  of 
Christ  and  the  Spirit  of  Christ  with  the  in- 
dwelling Spirit  of  God  is  very  suggestive.  It 
does  not  mean  that  Paul  had  the  same  idea  of 
immanence  that  scientific  theology  has  today, 
but  it  suggests  that  in  keeping  with  PauPs 
thought  the  term  Spirit,  Spirit  of  God,  or  Holy 
Spirit  may  be  used  as  taking  up  into  itself  the 
meaningfulness  of  the  word  Immanuel  as  ap- 
plied to  Jesus. 


The  Trinity  Truth  65 

This  is  the  meaning  of  Hynmody's  address 
to  the  Spirit: 

"Ever  present,  truest  Friend, 
Ever  near,  Thine  aid  to  lend." 

Often  the  hymn-writers,  dominated  by  thoughts 
of  majesty,  have  expressed  them  in  such  lines 
as  these: 

"Come   Holy   Spirit,   Heavenly  Dove, 
"With  light  and  comfort  from  above  J* 

"Holy  Spirit,  from  on  high 
Bend  on  us  a  pitying  eye." 

"Great  Comforter  descend  and  bring 
Some  token  of  thy  grace." 

Lines  like  these,  however,  are  supplemented  by 
such  Immannel  lines  as  these  of  Spurge  on : 

"Not  far  away  is  he 
To  be  by  prayer  brought  nigh, 
But  here  in  present  majesty 
As  in  his  courts  on  high;" 

and  by  the  oft-quoted  lines  of  Tennyson : 

"Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit 
can  meet. 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet." 

**Even  the  Spirit  of  truth,"  says  the  Fourth 


66     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

Gospel,  ''who  abideth  with  you  and  shall  be  in 
you." 

*^My  brethren,"  said  a  French  preacher,  **we 
have  unlearned  the  Holy  Spirit."  Having  in 
mind  both  the  modem  thought  of  immanence 
and  the  significance  of  that  beautiful  old  He- 
brew word,  many  modem  Christians  are  re- 
learning  the  *^Holy  Spirit"  as  that  in  which  the 
meaningfulness  of  *^Immanuel"  is  increased  in 
breadth,  depth,  and  power.  In  the  small  coun- 
try of  Palestine,  in  his  so  short  ministry,  Jesus, 
in  the  long  ago,  influenced  comparatively  few. 
More  than  he,  as  Immanuel,  meant  to  those  few, 
the  Holy  Spirit  means  to  myriads  in  all  lands 
today  and  will  mean  in  the  days  to  come.  And 
its  fundamental  meaning  is  the  immediacy  of 
Christlike  deity.  This  is  the  great  thought  that 
is  to  the  trinity  of  the  creeds  what  Jesus  was  to 
the  law.  It  comes  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil. 
Modem  scholars — ^wisely  or  unwisely — ^may  call 
attention  to  the  outgrown  thought-forms  of  the 
trinitarian  creeds,  but  to  millions  of  hearts  to- 
day, as  through  all  the  Christian  centuries,  this 
remains  as  its  heart  meaning. 


IV.     THE  NATURE  OF  GOD 

K  word  in  conclusion,  to  the  effect  that  the 
modem  theologian  faces  greater  difficulties  than 


The  Trinity  Truth  67 

did  those  who  wrote  these  creeds.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  Christlikeness  of  God  and 
the  idea  of  God  necessary  to  fit  the  greatness 
of  his  universe  and  the  hard  facts  of  life,  was 
at  heart  the  difficulty  with  which  the  earlier 
creed-makers  had  to  do.  This  is  the  heart  of 
the  difficulty  with  many  a  thoughtful  man  to- 
day— only  the  universe  is  vaster,  and  the  mis- 
eries of  life  affect  man's  thought  of  God  more 
deeply  than  in  the  times  of  the  first  great 
creeds.  "While  many  see  that  modem  science  is 
aiding  theology  in  some  respects,  yet  they  feel 
that  by  showing  them  the  stupendous  distances 
of  nature,  it  so  dazes  them  with  the  thought  of 
the  greatness  of  deity  that  they  cannot  even 
apprehend  him.  They  are  crying  to  the  scien- 
tific theologian  today:  *^ Canst  thou  by  search- 
ing find  out  God  I  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Al- 
mighty unto  perfection!"  Increased  apprecia- 
tion of  the  injustice  and  increased  sensitiveness 
to  the  misery  of  the  world — ^nature  **with  ra- 
pine red  in  tooth  and  claw"  and  the  awful 
carnage,  cruelty,  and  worse  than  brutishness 
of  war — so  daze  many  morally  that  they  ask: 
Who  is  God  that  this  should  be? 

F.  W.  H.  Myers  was  once  asked  by  a  close 
friend:  **What  is  the  thing  which,  above  all 
others,  you  most  desire  to  know?  If  you  could 
ask  the  Sphinx  one  question,  and  one  only,  what 


68     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

would  that  question  be?''  *^If  I  could  ask  tlie 
Spliinx  one  question,''  was  the  reply,  *^and 
only  one,  and  hope  for  an  answer,  I  think  it 
would  be  this :  *Is  the  Universe  friendly?'  "  To 
such  a  question  a  Christian  poet  answers : 

*'I  see  the  wrong  that  round  me  lies, 
I  feel  the  guilt  within; 
I  hear,  with  groan  and  travail -cries, 
The  world  confess  its  sin. 

'^Yet,  in  the  maddening  maze  of  things, 
And  tossed  by  storm  and  flood, 
To  one  fixed  trust  my  spirit  clings; 
I  know  that  God  is  good !'' 

The  reason  he  so  answered  is  that  as  a  Chris- 
tian he  believed  in  the  Christlikeness  of  God. 
This  is  the  Christian's  answer  to  that  same 
question  that  many  today  would  ask  the 
Sphinx.  It  is  a  vital  question,  and  wise;  and 
wise  is  the  Christian's  answer.  As  one  has 
said:  '*The  wise  question  is  not  *Is  Christ 
divine?'  but  'What  is  God  like?'  And  the  an- 
swer is  *  Christ.' '' 


CHAPTER  YI 
CHRISTLIKENESS— OF  GOD  AND  MAN 

I.       CHRISTIAN  PRAYER 

MANY  are  not  sure  of  the  existence  of 
God,  and  accordingly  have  lost,  or  have 
never  acquired,  the  habit  of  prayer. 
Has  the  Church  any  word  for  these  I  Yes.  But 
not  a  logically  complete  demonstration.  As 
others  can  help  to  create  the  atmosphere  in 
which  children  experience  love,  but  cannot  dem- 
onstrate it  to  them  like  a  problem  in  mathe- 
matics— so  with  the  sense  of  relationship  with 
God.  The  work  of  the  Church  is  to  help  create 
the  intellectual,  moral,  and  emotional  atmos- 
phere in  which  this  sense  will  most  naturally 
come  in  the  life-process  itself. 

To  this  end  it  is  well  to  remember  that  each 
human  being  is  part  of  a  great  whole.  The  uni- 
verse to  which  a  man  belongs  is  greater  exceed- 
ingly than  he.  Belonging  to  it,  what  is  his  re- 
lationship with  it  1  It  acts  on  him.  He  acts  on 
it.  Through  this  interaction  man  is  able  to 
attain  and  to  achieve.    That  the  Universe,  the 

69 


70     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

Cosmos,  the  Whole,  the  Eeality — call  it  what 
one  will — ^is  such  that  it  is  possible  for  man  as 
part  of  it  to  attain  to,  or  achieve,  something 
of  value — this  is  the  very  heart  of  religion. 
That  the  Eeality  is  such  as  to  make  possible 
Christ  and  Christhke  values  is  the  essence  of 
the  Christian  religion. 

Scepticism  commonly  seeks  for  a  reasoned- 
out,  an  intellectual,  relationship  with  such  a 
Eeality.  But  logical  reasoning  is  only  one  of 
the  phases  of  man's  life.  Man's  relationship 
with  Eeality  is  not  merely  something  to  be  rea- 
soned out.  It  is  not  merely  intellectual.  It  is 
emotional  and  volitional  as  well.  It  is  vital. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  simply  in  the  logical  reason- 
ing of  the  intellect,  but  in  action,  in  the  life- 
process  itself — ^with  its  intuitions,  its  feelings, 
its  willing — that  the  nature  of  the  great  Eeality 
is  to  be  learned.  Not  merely  by  making  intel- 
lectual pictures  of  different  phases  of  life  and 
viewing  them  separately,  but  in  the  moving- 
picture  process,  the  life-process  itself,  do  men 
find  the  basic  Eeality,  do  they  have  a  sense 
of  personal  deity. 

It  is  along  a  line  like  this  that  scepticism  may 
come  to  a  view  of  deity  that  makes  a  conscious- 
ness of  personal  divine  relationship,  and  so  of 
prayer,  natural.  "When  the  man  who  in  some 
way  has  felt  the  spell  of  Christlikeness  faces  a 


Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man       Jl 

great  bereavement,  or  from  a  course  of  sin 
comes  to  himself,  or  according  to  Ms  liigli  ideal 
is  striving  to  achieve,  then  it  is,  in  some  snch 
time  in  the  life-process  itself,  that  he  may  ob- 
tain a  sense,  vision,  intuition — call  it  what  one 
will — of  personal,  aye.  Christlike  deity.  Then 
it  is  that  a  man  naturally  prays. 

Professor  James  writes:  *^We  hear  in  these 
days  of  scientific  enlightenment  a  great  deal  of 
discussion  about  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  and 
many  reasons  are  given  us  why  we  should  not 
pray.  But  in  all  this  very  little  is  said  of  the 
reason  why  we  do  pray,  which  is  simply  that 
we  cannot  help  praying.  It  seems  probable 
that,  in  spite  of  all  that  *  science'  may  do  to 
the  contrary,  men  will  continue  to  pray  to  the 
end  of  time,  unless  their  mental  nature  changes 
in  a  manner  which  nothing  we  know  should  lead 
us  to  expect.  .  .  .  It  is  probably  that  men  differ 
a  good  deal  in  the  degree  in  which  they  are 
haunted  by  this  sense  of  an  ideal  spectator.  It 
is  a  much  more  essential  part  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  some  men  than  of  others.  Those  who 
have  the  most  of  it  are  possibly  the  most  reli- 
gious  men.  But  I  am  sure  that  even  those  who 
say  they  are  altogether  without  it,  deceive  them- 
selves, and  really  have  it  in  some  degree.'' 

In  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  *^The  Catechism  of  a 
Scientist,"  designed  to  give  '^a  particularly 


72     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

scientific  basis  for  future  religious  education/' 
the  **  Question — ^Wliat  do  you  understand  by 
prayer  r'  receives  the  following  **  Answer — ' 
That  when  our  spirits  are  attuned  to  the  spirit 
of  righteousness  our  hopes  and  aspirations  ex- 
ert an  influence  far  beyond  their  conscious  range 
and  in  the  true  sense  bring  us  into  communion 
with  our  Heavenly  Father.  This  power  of  filial 
petition  is  called  prayer/'  With  the  words 
''when  our  spirits  are  attuned  to  the  spirit  of 
righteousness''  the  eminent  scientist  is  strik- 
ingly at  one  with  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  con- 
cerning the  prayer-condition  that  brings  to  man 
a  sense  of  communion  with  Deitv. 

It  is  a  moral  condition.  The  Bible  disquiets 
many  intellectually,  but  more  morally.  It  is 
like  a  man  at  first  heartily  disliked  because  of 
his  brusque  manner  and  pointed  words  aimed  at 
some  besetting  sins.  In  time,  however,  when 
his  revelation  that  at  first  disquieted  the  mind 
left  its  beneficial  influence  upon  the  life,  his 
true  worth  was  learned.  An  effect  akin  to  this 
is  produced  by  coming  in  touch  with  such  a  text 
as  Psalm  66:18:  ''If  I  regard  iniquity  in  my 
heart,  the  Lord  will  not  hear. ' '  However  views 
may  differ  concerning  the  interpretation  and 
authority  of  the  Scriptures  in  general,  and  of 
this  verse  in  particular,  it  is  impossible  to  get 
away  from  the  deep  truth  it  and  its  many  par- 


Christiikeness — of  God  and  Man       73 

allel  texts  contain,  namely,  the  moral  condition 
of  communion  with  God. 

Centuries  before  Christ,  Homer *s  Hector,  the 
Greek  hero,  dreading  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods, 
with  unwashed  hands ;  Philo,  a  Jewish  contem- 
porary of  Jesus,  admonishing  not  to  go  to  the 
altars  to  pray  bringing  sin  or  violent  passion; 
and  Burns,  the  Scottish  bard  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  he  sang: 

"Then  how  shall  I  for  heaven's  mercies  pray, 
Who  act  so   counter   heavenly  mercies'   plan"?" 

suggest  the  thought  of  Jehovah  according  to 
Isaiah:  ^^Yea,  when  ye  make  many  prayers,  I 
will  not  hear:  your  hands  are  full  of  blood. '^ 
The  thought  that  unless  the  wicked  were  willing 
to  *^ forsake  his  way"  or  his  unrighteous 
thoughts  he  had  no  right  to  expect  God  would 
**have  mercy  upon  him"  in  hearing  his  prayer 
is  prominent  throughout  the  Scriptures.  One 
of  their  blind  men  voiced  their  testimony:  ^*God 
heareth  not  sinners."  Though  they  do  not  call 
it  such  they  clearly  teach  as  the  golden  rule  of 
prayer :  Do  unto  others  as  you  would  that  God 
should  do  to  you.  Their  greatest  prophets  sig- 
nal as  the  condition  of  achieving  prayer :  *  *  God 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty." 

They  go  further.     They  teach  that  to  some 


74     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

extent  every  man  is  responsible  for  his  concep- 
tion of  duty.  The  story  goes  that  a  yonng 
clergyman  was,  for  financial  reasons,  about  to 
change  his  creed.  To  the  irrefutable  arguments 
of  an  aged  brother  he  replied:  **I  do  not  see 
that  what  you  urge  is  my  duty."  The  old  man 
took  a  pencil,  and  writing  the  word,  **duty," 
asked,  ^^Do  you  see  that?"  **Yes,"  was  the  an- 
swer. Then,  putting  a  sovereign  over  it,  he 
asked  again,  **Why  do  you  not  see  it  now?" 
Reluctantly  the  young  man  replied :  '  ^  The  gold 
hides  it."  That  the  ** filthy  lucre"  of  self- 
interest  that  hides  men's  duty  may  also  hide 
God's  face  is  the  teaching  of  Scripture.  What 
saith  it?  *^They  will  seek  me  diligently,  but 
they  shall  not  find  me;  for  that  they  hated 
knowledge."  And  again,  **He  that  turneth 
away  his  ear  from  hearing  the  law  even  his 
prayer  is  an  abomination." 

Because  of  the  issues  involved,  assurance 
should  be  made  doubly  sure.  To  this  end  lumi- 
nous are  the  words  of  one  who  wrote:  *^ Guilt 
cherishes  the  pretence  of  Doubt.  And  there  are 
ways  and  manners  of  life  coloured  less  som- 
brely than  guilt,  which  also  fly  to  Doubt  to  keep 
them  out  of  the  way  of  the  celestial  police. 
Many  people  find,  to  their  temporary  comfort, 
that  a  respectable  face  may  be  put  on  several 
indulgences  and  laxities  in  respect  of  purity, 


Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man       75 

sacrifice,  charity,  if  they  can  sustain,  now  with 
sighs,  now  with  rebellious  outcries,  the  posture 
of  men  caught  and  torn  in  the  thicket  of  first 
principles.  In  reality  the  thicket  has  no  thorns, 
as  they  pretend ;  within  its  plaintive  shade  they 
cherish  their  secret  and  forbidden  fruits.''  In 
the  light  of  today  relatively  less  do  the  petty 
pieties,  the  minor  matters  of  merely  personal 
affairs,  the  technicalities  of  ecclesiasticism,  and 
relatively  more  does  the  question  of  readiness 
to  engage  in  the  task  of  solving  social  questions, 
condition  the  freedom  and  worth  of  prayer. 

There  have  been  those  who  have  prayed  to 
this  effect:  ^^0  God,  if  there  be  a  God" — at 
the  same  time  promising  to  do  the  right  thing  as 
it  became  known  to  them.  As  a  result  they  have 
had  a  feeling  of  enlargement,  of  capacity,  of 
moral  elevation,  of  mastery,  of  triumph,  and 
of  fellowship  with  Deity,  from  whose  presence 
and  activity  they  have  inferred  that  the  prayer- 
blessings  came.  In  any  case,  sincerity  in  seek- 
ing and  determination  to  live  the  truth  so  sen- 
sitise the  soul  that  it  is  ready  to  have  the  im- 
pression of  God  made  upon  it.  If  there  is  an 
honest  resolve  not  simply  to  leave  the  wrong 
imdone  but  to  do  the  right,  then,  or  probably 
not  long  after  in  the  life-process,  will  come  a 
consciousness  of  God  that  makes  prayer  possi- 
ble.   It  may  be  out  of  the  quietude  of  much 


76     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

brooding,  as  a  flame  suddenly  darts  from  a 
smouldering  fire.  It  may  be  at  a  time  of  soli- 
tude among  the  mountains  or  out  beneath  the 
stars.  It  may  be  at  a  time  of  great  sorrow  or 
of  great  joy.  It  may  be,  and  frequently  has 
been,  just  before  going  ^^over  the  top''  or  wben 
lying  wounded  on  *^No  Man's  Land."  It  may 
be  occasioned  by  something,  of  itself  not  very 
important,  like  the  tiny  flower  that  an  atheistic 
prisoner  found  growing  in  his  prison  yard; 
and,  in  watching  it,  found  God.  It  may  be,  and 
often  is,  in  a  place  of  worship,  when  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  devotion  the  mind  is  led  to  im- 
merse itself  in  thoughts  concerning  Jesus  and 
concerning  the  experiences  of  others  who  have 
had  a  Christlike  sense  of  Deity.  Whatever  the 
occasion,  that  which  makes  for  the  highest  God- 
consciousness,  and  one  that  abides,  is  this  de- 
termination to 

"Persistently  strive 
Just  the  right  thing  to  do." 

** Whosoever  then,"  so  runs  the  greatest  book 
of  the  mystics,  *^  would  fully  and  feelingly  un- 
derstand the  words  of  Christ,  must  endeavour 
to  conform  his  life  wholly  to  the  life  of  Christ." 
Striving  for  Christlike  humanity  in  one's  self 
and  others  makes  for  belief  in  Christlike  Deity. 


Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man       JJ 

II.      THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

This  suggests  that  a  study  of  history  shows 
this  word  ^  ^  Christlike ' '  to  be  the  best  descrip- 
tive, defining  term  for  Christianity's  ideal  for 
humanity,  as  well  as  for  its  conception  of  Deity. 
Not  only  its  theology,  but  also  its  morality,  pre- 
dominantly has  been  Christ-centred.  Funda- 
mental in  ethics,  in  general,  is  an  ideal  of  life 
to  make  one  stop  and  think.  Christlikeness  has 
been  and  is  the  distinctive  ideal  in  Christian 
ethics. 

In  the  New  Testament  it  is  found  frequently. 
In  all  three  of  the  synoptic  gospels  is  given, 
as  coming  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  himself  in  fore- 
telling his  own  death:  *^If  any  man  would  come 
after  me,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  me.''  In  the  Fourth  Gospel 
he  is  represented  as  saying,  *'I  have  given  you 
an  example,  that  ye  also  should  do  as  I  have 
done  to  you."  Among  the  many  instances  in 
Paul's  epistles  we  read:  *'Have  this  mind  in 
you,  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus."  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  there  is  this  stimulant: 
**  Consider  him  that  hath  endured  such  gain- 
saying of  sinners  against  himself,  that  ye  wax 
not  weary,  fainting  in  your  souls."  The  First 
Epistle  of  Peter  reasons :  *^  Christ  also  suffered 
for  you,  leaving  you  an  example,  that  ye  should 


yS     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

follow  his  steps."  And  the  First  Epistle  of 
John  affirms:  **He  that  saith  he  abide th  in  him 
ought  himself  also  to  walk  even  as  he. walked." 

Between  New  Testament  times  and  the  Ref- 
ormation the  outstanding  book  of  the  mystics 
that  sums  up  their  best  is  **The  Imitation  of 
Christ."  It  begins:  ^^  ^He  that  followeth  Me, 
walketh  not  in  darkness,'  saith  the  Lord.  These 
are  the  words  of  Christ,  by  which  we  are  taught 
to  imitate  His  life  and  manners,  if  we  would 
be  truly  enlightened,  and  be  delivered  from  all 
blindness  of  heart.  Let  therefore  our  chief  en- 
deavour be  to  meditate  upon  the  life  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

Since  the  Reformation,  in  the  realm  of  Chris- 
tian hymnody  there  are  many  lines  dominated 
by  the  aspiration  after  Christlikeness.  Watts, 
for  instance,  supplicated  in  song: 

"Be  thou  my  pattern;  make  me  bear 
More  of  thy  gracious  image  here." 

Montgomery  expressed  a  common  desire: 

"Through  paths  of  loving-kindness  led, 
Where  Jesus  triumphed  we  would  tread; 
To  all  with  willing  hands  dispense 
The  gift  of  our  benevolence." 

And  so  commonly  in  the  prayer  services  of  the 
Church  as  to  be  hackneyed  is  heard  the  exhorta- 
tion : 


Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man       79 

"To  the  work!  to  the  work!    We  are  servants  of  God. 
Let  us  follow  the  path  that  our  Master  has  trod." 

So,  too,  the  meditation: 

"Must  Jesus  bear  the  cross  alone 
And  all  the  world  go  free? 
No,   there's  a  cross  for  everyone, 
And  there's  a  cross  for  me.'' 

Christlike  Deity  and  Christlike  humanity — a 
belief  and  a  goal.  The  two  should  go  together. 
The  inclusion  of  both  is  necessary  in  any  ade- 
quate statement  of  what  is  fundamental  in 
Christianity.  They  are  not  Christians  who  sim- 
ply assent  to  the  belief.  There  must  come  in 
that  ever  inexplicable  way  a  consciousness  of 
God,  an  Immanuel  experience,  that  makes  for 
achieving  relationship,  co-operation,  aye — to  use 
a  warmer,  all-suggestive  word — fellowship,  with 
Christlike  Deity.  They  must  be  able  to  say: 
*'Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father."  They 
must  also  be  able  to  say:  *^We  are  God's  fel- 
low-workers''— and  in  the  great  work  of  sav- 
ing humanity,  themselves  included,  from  un- 
Christlikeness.  To  be  a  Christian,  then,  is  to 
have  with  Christlike  Deity  a  fellowship  that 
makes  for  Christlike  humanity. 

On  the  other  hand,  striving  for  Christlike  hu- 
manity   leads    to    fellowship   with    Christlike 


8o     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

Deity.  This,  therefore,  in  a  nutshell,  is  the 
message  of  the  modern  Christian  prophet  to 
any  who  are  sceptical  concerning  a  good  God 
who  cares:  Philosophic  speculations,  intellec- 
tual abstractions,  logical  reasonings  alone, 
though  good,  are  not  sufficient.  A  brilliant  the- 
orist about  electricity  may  not  drive  the  cars 
or  light  the  city  at  all,  or  as  well  as  one  who 
with  little  theorising  uses  the  everyday  appli- 
ances. Your  philosophising  about  Deity  and 
prayer  may  leave  you  stalled  and  dark,  while 
one  who  knows  little  or  nothing  about  philoso- 
phy may,  because  he  has  practical  living  con- 
nection with  the  great  vital  Impulse,  be  giving 
others,  and  having  himself,  luminous  progress 
in  that  which  is  most  worth  while.  It  is  in  the 
life-process  itself  that  you  really  find  God  as 
co-operatively  companionable  in  work  and  wor- 
ship, in  deed  and  prayer.  Adventure,  there- 
fore, in  faith.  Impelled  by  what  you  recognise 
as  the  highest  witliin  you,  as  a  true  knight  fol- 
low the  gleam.  Self-expression  will  make  for 
self-expansion.  Your  reach  is  beyond  your 
grasp,  but  reach.  If  you  knew  all  there  would 
be  no  novelty  and  thrilling  adventure.  Play 
your  part  and  play  it  well.  You  may  not  like 
the  cards  you  hold,  but  play  the  game. 

Get  a  vision  of  Christ.    To  this  end  read  the 
New  Testament.    Meet  Jesus  there.    Feel  the 


Christlikeness — of  God  and  Man       8l 

spell  of  his  personality.  Eemember — whatever 
the  philosophical  and  theological  attempts  to 
explain  the  mystery  of  evil — ^that  in  the  uni- 
verse back  of  him,  and  making  him  possible, 
must  have  been  Christlikeness.  Do  not,  how- 
ever, stop  with  this  reflection.  Coming  in  touch 
with  his  own  religious  life,  strive  to  be  like  him, 
aim  to  make  others  Christlike  also;  and,  feel- 
ing your  need,  you  will  become  conscious  of 
Christlike  Deity,  will  find  yourself  in  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father.  The  firm  foundation  of 
God  standeth. 


CHAPTER  yn 

CHRISTIANITY'S  UNIFYING 
FUNDAMENTAL 

FELLOWSHIP,  with  Christlike  Deity,  that 
makes  for  Christlike  humanity — this, 
stated  in  a  way  that  would  seem  to  be 
wise,  historically  and  psychologically,  is  Chris- 
tianity's Unifying  Fundamental.  The  aim  in 
this  chapter  is  to  give,  and  with  as  much  cor- 
roborative quotation  as  space  will  permit,  five 
reasons  for  this. 

I.     FUNDAMENTAi: 

It  is  fundamental.  It  has  what  is  funda- 
mental in  religion,  which  itself  is  fundamental 
in  human  life.  The  fundamental  nature  of  reli- 
gion is  expressed  by  Professor  G.  B.  Smith  thus : 
**One  of  the  most  significant  of  the  conclusions 
of  modern  scholarship  is  the  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  religion  is  a  fundamental  and  primary 
activity  of  the  human  spirit.  Science  or  philos- 
ophy cannot  create  religion.  The  scientific  in- 
vestigator can  only  analyse  what  he  finds  in 

82 


Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental      83 

the  actual  experience  of  man.  The  great  French 
philosopher,  Comte,  with  all  his  eagerness  to 
organise  a  scientifically  determined  religion 
which  should  supplant  crude  faiths  and  unite 
men  in  the  worship  and  the  service  of  humanity, 
failed  to  attract  more  than  a  handful  of  fol- 
lowers. Religion  is  not  dependent  on  science 
or  culture  or  philosophy  for  its  existence.  It 
is  a  great  fundamental  reality  due  to  the  prac- 
tical need  of  man  for  superhuman  aid  in  his 
struggle  with  the  adverse  forces  of  his  envi- 
ronment. ' ' 

If  religion  is  fundamental  in  life,  what  is  fun- 
damental in  religion?  To  get  down  to  this 
fundamental  is  the  chief  reason  for  a  compara- 
tive study  of  religions.  This  reveals  the  fact 
that,  though  religions  differ  widely,  they  have 
much  in  common,  because,  though  individuals 
change  much,  man  changes  little.  The  human 
heart  with  its  needs  has  been  much  the  same  in 
all  races  and  throughout  all  ages.  All  religions 
have  a  common  foundation. 

In  his  *^The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experi- 
ence'' Professor  James  gave  striking  expres- 
sion to  what  is  fundamentally  common  in  all  re- 
ligions. In  the  concluding  chapter  he  wrote: 
**The  warring  gods  and  formulas  of  the  various 
religions  do  indeed  cancel  each  other,  but  there 
is  a  certain  uniform  deliverance  in  which  reli- 


84     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

gions  all  appear  to  meet.  It  consists  of  two 
parts :  (1)  An  uneasiness ;  and  (2)  Its  solution. 
(1)  The  uneasiness,  reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  is  a  sense  that  there  is  something  wrong 
about  us  as  we  naturally  stand.  (2)  The  solu- 
tion is  a  sense  that  we  are  saved  from  the 
wrongness  by  making  proper  connection  with 
the  higher  powers."  Christians  are  saved  from 
the  ** wrongness,"  the  ^^ uneasiness"  or  (to  use 
a  word  even  better  than  either)  the  loneliness 
of  life  through  their  loving  fellowship  with  the 
Christlike  Father. 


II.      DISTINCTIVELY  CHRISTIAN 

It  is  distinctively  Christian.  Having  in  it 
that  which  is  fundamentally  religious,  through 
the  term  ** Christlike"  it  is  distinctively  Chris- 
tian. ^^If,  however,"  wrote  Professor  D.  C. 
Macintosh  of  Yale,  *^we  would  distinguish  the 
essential  quality  of  the  Christian  religion  from 
other  religions  more  sharply,  we  can  perhaps 
find  no  more  accurate  modifying  term  than  the 
word  *  Christlike.'  Christianity  is  the  religion  of 
deliverance  from  unChristlikeness  to  a  Christ- 
like morality,  through  a  Christlike  attitude  to- 
ward a  Christlike  superhuman  reality.  This  dis- 
tinction would  serve,  we  think,  to  mark  off  the 


Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental.      85 

essence  of  Christianity  definitely  from  the  es- 
sence of  any  other  moral  religion." 

To  the  same  effect  is  an  editorial  in  The  Bib- 
lical World  which  ran:  '* Christianity  is  rightly 
so  named.  Viewed  historically  it  arose  in  an 
epoch-making  modification  of  the  Jewish  reli- 
gion by  Jesus  who  was  called  Christ.  What- 
ever the  evolutionary  process  through  which  it 
has  passed  since,  it  has  never  ceased  to  profess 
and  in  large  measure  to  maintain  its  loyalty  to 
Jesus.  .  .  .  What  it  has  been  it  will  be,  a  reli- 
gion always  in  the  making,  always  turning  back 
to  the  great  Master  whose  name  it  bears,  to 
catch  anew  his  spirit  and  the  inspiration  of  his 
life  and  death,  yet  always  reaching  out  to  the 
future,  assimilating  new  truth,  adjusting  itself 
to  new  conditions,  conquering  by  its  docility, 
vindicating  its  right  to  call  itself  Christian,  and 
its  loyalty  to  Jesus  by  its  endeavour  to  put  into 
action  his  teaching,  and  by  its  readiness  to 
prove  all  things  and  hold  fast  the  true  and  the 
good/' 

III.      HISTORICALLY  WISE 

It  is  historically  wise.  To  the  historian 
who  is  also  a  wise  seer  the  present  is  but  a 
point  in  a  line  of  development.  To  get  the  line 
it  is  wise,  therefore,  to  look  into  the  past.    The 


86     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

term  **Cliristlike"  keeps  that  touch  with  the 
past  that  makes  for  true  development.  In  its 
reference  to  both  Deity  and  humanity  in  no  two 
ages  and,  in  fact,  in  no  two  persons,  has  it 
meant  exactly  the  same.  Its  origin  goes  back 
to  the  use  of  the  Greek  word  ^* Christ"  for  the 
Hebrew  word  ** Messiah"  as  a  name  for  Jesus. 
The  early  Christians,  under  the  influence  of  his 
life  and  the  stories  of  his  life,  poured  into  the 
term  that  which  made  it  an  expression  of  their 
great  idea.  Because  of  its  constant  use  by  them 
this  term  naturally  has  been  continued,  though, 
like  many  other  historic  terms,  the  meaning  of 
it  has  varied  with  the  different  environments 
and  experiences  of  those  who  have  used  it.  The 
early  Hebrew  meaning,  influenced  by  the  con- 
ception of  the  Messiah,  was  modified  by  the 
thought  in  the  popular  mystery  type  of  reli- 
gion in  the  Roman  Empire  into  which  Chris- 
tianity was  born.  It  was  influenced,  too,  by 
Greek  philosophy,  notably,  for  instance,  in  the 
Logos,  or  Word,  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Later 
it  was  affected  by  the  ascetic  and  ritualistic 
types  of  the  early  centuries;  then  by  the  dog- 
matic types  following  the  Reformation;  and 
since  then  it  has  been  changed  by  types  many 
and  varied — romantic,  rationalistic,  socialistic, 
and  others.  Nevertheless,  however  the  mean- 
ing has  varied,  back  of  it  has  been  the  personal 


Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental      87 

religion  of  Jesus  himself,  in  which,  as  even 
modern  science  is  helping  to  show,  were  the  big 
abiding  things  to  fit  the  need  of  all  the  ages. 
Through  both  its  syllables  **  Christlike ' '  is 
sufficiently  adaptable  to  cover  past  changes  in 
Christianity  and  to  allow  for  any  further  inev- 
itable changes  through  the  most  thorough  inves- 
tigations of  modernism  and  post-modernism. 
It  thus  gives  for  Christianity  an  inspiring  fun- 
damental symbol  upon  which  all  Christians, 
as  Christians,  have  agreed,  do  agree,  and  will 
agree.  *'The  name  of  Christ,"  said  Professor 
Eoyce,  **has  always  been,  for  the  Christian  be- 
lievers, the  symbol  for  the  Spirit  in  whom  the 
faithful — that  is  to  say,  the  loyal — always  are 
and  have  been  one."  Because  of  its  **rich  but 
not  rigid"  meaning  it  may  be  said  of  the  term 
*^ Christlike"  as  of  the  beautiful  Eiffel  tower: 
**  Storms  have  come  and  gone,  hurricanes  may 
beat  against  it.  It  has  stood  and  will  stand. 
It  breaks  not  because  it  bends ;  it  sinks  not  be- 
cause it  sways." 

IV.      SPECIALLY  INSPIRING 

It  is  specially  inspiring.  It  gives  the  psy- 
chological appeal  of  personality.  It  is  more 
than  principle  personified.  It  is  principle  per- 
sonified in  an  especially  searching  and  inspiring 


88     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

way,  because  it  brings  man  face  to  face  with 
what  one  refers  to  as  **the  ideal  which  Jesus 
presents. ' '  His  words  are ;  *  *  No  one  can  under- 
stand the  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus  without  be- 
ing brought  face  to  face  with  the  most  searching 
scrutiny  of  the  motives  of  his  inner  life.  One 
must  make  the  great  decision  for  or  against  the 
ddeal  which  Jesus  presents."  Since,  in  stating 
the  fundamental,  *^ Christ'^  was  used  not  merely 
as  a  great  Ideal,  but  as  the  Ideal  that  has  back 
of  it  Jesus'  own  religious  life,  the  fundamental 
term  ** Christlike"  has  the  inspiring  appeal  of 
being  associated  with  a  definite  person  and  He 
the  founder  of  Christianity.  The  pedagogical 
significance  of  this  must  not  be  overlooked. 

An  intricate  lock  was  made  of  lettered  rings 
and  opened  only  when  the  rings  were  so  ar- 
ranged that  the  letters  spelled  ** Jesus."  An 
aged  negress  after  learning  her  letters  asked 
to  be  taught  the  name  of  Jesus,  **  'Cause,"  she 
said,  **  'pears  like  the  rest  will  come  easier  if 
I  learn  that  blessed  name  fust."  To  open  up 
the  way  to  highest  co-operation  with  man,  to 
learn  the  language  of  the  higher  life  of  co-op- 
erative relationship  with  God,  it  is  good  peda- 
gogy, as  well  as  **good  news,"  to  begin  with 
**that  blessed  name  first." 

That  men  might  not  simply  admire,  but  be 
dominated  by,  the  Christ,  Christian  psycholo- 


Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental      89 

gists  of  today  urge,  in  view  of  the  experience  of 
the  Church  throughout  the  ages,  that  it  preach 
not  only  the  message  of  Jesus  but  Jesus  him- 
self— failing  not,  in  presenting  his  Gospel,  to 
use  the  appeal  of  his  cross,  but  to  remember  it 
is  Jesus  that  is  upon  it. 


V.     UNIFYING 

It  is  unifying.  The  belief  that  it  is  rests 
upon  two  reasons.  The  first  is  that  it  puts  em- 
phasis upon  that  which  underlies  all  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  churches.  Instead  of 
seeking  to  eliminate  these  differences,  and  so 
calling  more  attention  to  them,  it  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  inexhaustible  depth  of  what  is  really 
fundamental  to  all  the  churches.  That  this  is 
the  way  of  attaining  comity  and  co-operative 
union  is  confirmed  by  the  words  of  an  American 
Congregationalist,  Dr.  Oliver  Huckel:  **  Breth- 
ren, the  truth  itself,  I  make  bold  to  say,  is  a 
larger  thing  than  is  contained  in  either  extreme 
of  the  Catholic  or  Evangelical  contentions.  Nor 
is  it  some  golden  mean.  But  it  is  found,  I  am 
sure,  in  a  further  comprehension  of  the  abso- 
lute truth  that  underlies  each  position.  Here 
is  the  point  of  possible  reconciliation — in  some- 
thing greater  and  richer  than  either  the  present 
Catholic  or  the  present  Evangelical  position." 


90     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

Fellowship,  with  Christlike  Deity,  that  makes 
for  Christlike  humanity  includes  what  all  Chris- 
tians must  hold  in  common.  It,  however,  has 
the  benefit  of  being  that  upon  which  all  Chris- 
tians, as  Christians,  must  stand,  without  being 
merely  an  innocuous  remainder  after  the  elimi- 
nation of  all  upon  which  any  Christians  may 
differ. 

The  other  reason  for  the  belief  that  our 
Christian  fundamental  is  unifying  is  that  it 
does  not  call  for  an  unnatural  union.  The 
adaptability  of  the  term  ** Christlike"  permits 
great  diversity  in  unity.  To  quote  from  Bal- 
four's ^* Theism  and  Humanism":  **Men  do  not 
necessarily  believe  exactly  the  same  thing  be- 
cause they  express  their  convictions  in  ex- 
actly the  same  phrases.  And  most  fortunate  it 
is,  in  the  interests  of  individual  liberty,  social 
co-operation,  and  institutional  continuity  that 
this  latitude  should  be  secured  to  us,  not  by 
the  policy  of  philosophers,  statesmen,  or  di- 
vines, but  by  the  inevitable  limitations  of  lan- 
guage." W.  Boyd  Carpenter,  Bishop  of  Ri- 
pon,  in  his  '  '■  Christian  Reunion, ' '  wrote :  *  *  The 
spokes  of  the  wheel  may.  be  many,  but  the  nave 
must  be  one.  On  many  important  matters 
churches  may  teach  differently,  but  may  yet 
find  union  in  some  symbol  of  truth.  .  .  .  Better 
than  the  way  of  conference  and  council,  for 


Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental      91 

bringing  about  this  reunion,  is  the  way  of 
Christlikeness,  whicb  is  the  true  way  of  peace." 
Fellowship,  with  Christlike  Deity,  that  makes 
for  Christlike  humanity  is  a  nave,  or  hub,  in 
which  all  the  churches  may  centre,  to  make  for 
the  progress  of  humanity.  Loving  fellowship 
with  God  means  loving  fellowship  among  men. 
Fellowship !  What  a  word  to  conjure  with ! 
"What  a  thought  with  which  to  face  the  big 
things  of  life!  That  this  may  be  increasingly 
evident  is  the  thought  in  the  chapters  that 
follow. 


CHAPTER  Vni 
LONESOMENESS 

I.     A  DEEP  LIFE  FACT 

AFTER  enjoying  for  a  few  days  tlie  hos- 
pitality of  a  wealthy  business  man,  we 
arrived  at  the  station  ahead  of  time. 
During  the  few  minutes'  conversation  before 
the  train  pulled  out,  he  opened  his  purse  and 
took  from  it  a  poem,  not  an  original  one — ^he  did 
not  go  so  far  as  that — ^but  one  enshrining  a 
choice  bit  of  sentiment.  A  poem  in  a  purse  t 
Again  and  again  out  of  the  commercial  and 
professional  has  welled  up  a  fountain  of  sen- 
timent— the  poetry  of  life. 

Let,  therefore,  the  application  of  our  argu- 
ment to  the  big  things  of  life  begin  with  a  beau- 
tiful bit  of  Hebrew  verse.  With  subtle  charm 
its  pensive  poetry  would  woo  from  timely  topic 
to  eternal  truth,  from  the  marts  of  men  to  the 
heart  of  God.  It  is  the  prayer  of  the  afflicted 
when  he  is  overwhelmed  and  poureth  out  his 
complaint  before  Jehovah : 

92 


Lonesomeness  93 


"I  am  like  a  pelican  of  the  wilderness; 
I  am  become  as  an  owl  of  the  waste  places. 
I  watch,  and  am  become  like  a  sparrow 
That  is  alone  upon  the  housetop." 

In  these  four  lines  there  are  three  pictures 
with  one  theme — lonesomeness.  In  the  first,  a 
pelican,  standing  in  an  uninhabited  place,  is 
motionless,  with  its  head  on  its  breast — '*  singu- 
larly listless  and  melancholy.''  The  second  is 
an  owl  among  the  ruins — a  boding  bird  of 
night.  The  third  seems  to  be  a  social  little 
house-sparrow,  feeling  keenly  its  solitariness. 
To  be  like  the  melancholy  pelican  of  the  wilder- 
ness, like  the  boding  owl  of  the  ruins,  and  like 
the  society-loving  sparrow,  '*  alone  upon  the 
housetop,''  is  not  simply  to  be  alone;  it  is  to 
be  lonesome. 

From  the  water  directly  in  front  of  an  old 
shack  in  the  woods,  as  plainly  as  was  ever 
heard  by  ears  of  man  from  throat  of  bird, 
came  the  plaintive  cry:  **I'm  alone,  I'm  alone." 
It  was  the  call  of  a  loon  looking  for  its  mate. 
Soon  the  mate  appeared,  and  the  plaintive  cry- 
ing ceased.  It  was  alone,  as  it  said,  but,  as 
its  piteous  tone  implied,  it  was  more.  It  was 
lonesome. 

Bird  parables  these  of  life.  The  human  heart 
is  lonesome.    This  is  a  thought  with  which,  for 


94     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

many  at  least,  the  practical  application  of 
Christianity  might  well  begin.  Some  begin  with 
the  thought  that  the  human  heart  is  guilty.  It 
is.  Christianity  has  to  do  with  guilt.  It  emi- 
nently is  a  religion  of  redemption.  But  it  has  a 
wider  and  deeper  range  than  that.  Guilt  makes 
for  lonesomeness,  and  magnifies  it,  but  lone- 
someness  is  deeper  than  guilt.  Most  use  the 
word  sinfulness.  Professor  James  uses  the 
word  ^'wrongness."  But  for  many  the  one 
word  of  words  to  express  the  deep  life-fact 
would  be  lonesomeness. 


II.      LONESOMENESS  DIAGNOSED 

There  is  the  lonesomeness  of  solitude.  Guilt 
aggravates  it.  No  longer  able  to  endure  the 
torments  of  solitude,  the  brutal  Legree,  stamp- 
ing and  whistling  to  the  dogs,  cried  out  to  them 
in  his  terror:  *^Wake  up  some  of  you  and  keep 
me  company."  But  the  tendency  to  lonesome- 
ness in  solitude  is  not  necessarily  due  to  some- 
thing wrong  in  the  life.  The  desire  for  society 
is  an  instinctive  principle  of  human  nature. 
The  language  of  Scripture  is  a  law  of  life:  **It 
is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone. ' '  The  natural 
human  heart  rebels  against  the  grey  days  of 
solitude  when: 


Lonesomeness  95 


''No  sound,  no  whirr  of  wings  thrilling  the  air, 
The  sky  hangs  motionless — a  blur  of  grey. 
Would  that   a  fierce  wild  wind  might  wake   and  sway 
Its  pulseless  breast!    Would  that  one  angry  tear 
Might  fall  athwart  its  passive  face!     Oh,  Life, 
I  ask  no  respite  from  thy  storms  and  strife. 
Only  thy  cold,  grey  silences  I  fear." 

Unpleasant  as  is  the  lonesomeness  of  soli- 
tude, more  unpleasant  is  the  lonesomeness  of 
society.  The  consciousness  of  being  isolated  in. 
society  is  worse  than  the  consciousness  of  be- 
ing isolated  from  society. 

Perhaps  most  important  in  the  explanation  of 
lonesomeness  in  society  is  conscious  individu- 
ality— thinking,  feeling,  and  willing  differently 
from  everyone  else.  Each  human  birth,  a  mira- 
cle !  Each  human  being,  a  genius !  Each  human 
life,  unique!  Carlyle's  professor  tells  of  the 
awakening  to  the  truth,  '*I  was  like  no  other.'' 
An  awakening  leading,  according  to  him,  *  *  some- 
times to  highest,  and  oftener  to  frightfullest 
results!''  Earlier  or  later  everyone  awakes  to 
this  same  truth  that  he  is  different  from  others, 
who  do  not  fully  understand  him  or  he  them — • 
an  awakening  that  is  not  unmixed  with  pain. 
Mankind  is  not  like  the  continent  of  North 
America — a  united  mass  divided  here  and  there 
.by  many  rivers  and  lakes.  Like  the  Thousand 
Islands,  separated  from  one  another  by  the 


96     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

waters  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  mankind  is  made 
up  of  individuals. 

"Yes!  in  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 
With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown, 
Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild, 
We  mortal  millions  live  alone  I" 

We  are  as  ''ships  that  pass  in  the  night,"  and 
like  the  Ancient  Mariner : 

"Alone,  alone, — all,  all  alone; 
Alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea." 

Fronde  was  right :  ' '  There  is  always  a  part 
of  our  being  into  which  those  who  are  dearer 
to  us  far  than  our  own  lives  are  yet  unable  to 
enter."  We  would  enter  more  than  we  do  into 
the  lives  of  those  we  love.  We  would  have  them 
enter  more  fully  into  what  is  best  in  our  own. 
But  this  very  individuality  that  makes  love  pos- 
sible makes  isolation  inevitable. 

Selfishness  increases  this  sense  of  isolation. 
It  widens  the  St.  Lawrence  of  our  Thousand 
Isles.  It  is  an  insulating  stool  that  prevents  the 
electric  flow  of  sympathy  from  reaching  our 
lonesome  hearts.  Without  this  flow  of  loving 
Kympathy  the  human  heart  cannot  but  be  lone- 
some. This  it  is,  more  than  the  weight  of  years, 
that  so  often  makes  old  age  a  burden  to  be 
borne.     The  unpleasant  feeling  that  in  some 


Lonesomeness  97 


way,  lie  knows  not  how,  he  is  out  of  touch 
with  the  active,  progressive  men  of  today  dark- 
ens what  should  be  the  glorious  sunset  of  many 
a  life.  The  lack  of  the  seasoning  of  sympathy 
makes  the  events  of  life  insipid  to  many  an 
aged  man.  Heaven  pity  the  old  who  are  lone- 
some! Heaven  pity  all  who  are  isolated  by  a 
great  sorrow  unbridged  by  sympathy!  Many 
are  they  who  tread  the  winepress  alone. 

Since  selfishness  and  sympathy  both  exist  in 
various  and  varying  proportions,  lonesomeness 
has  degrees.  The  farther  a  man  is  removed 
from  the  level  of  his  surroundings,  the  greater 
his  lonesomeness.  The  more  the  criminal  is 
sunk  in  his  haunts  of  vice,  the  more  lonesome 
would  he  be  in  the  place  of  purity  and  peace. 
The  greater  the  elevation  the  greater  the  isola- 
tion. After  he  became  President,  Garfield  con- 
fessed: ^^The  loneliness  of  the  position  is  ap- 
palling. Nobody  approaches  me  on  the  same 
plane  as  of  old.  I  was  never  so  isolated,  never 
so  lonesome  in  all  my  life."  In  moral  eleva- 
tion the  tendency  is  to  isolation.  **Be  good," 
said  the  great  humourist,  **and  you'll  be  lone- 
some," and  his  saying  has  even  more  wisdom 
than  wit.  In  the  presence  of  opportunity,  the 
greater  the  opportunity  and  the  higher  the  seer 
the  greater  the  sense  of  lonesomeness.  With  his 
lofty  aims,  his  unselfish  work,  how  Jesus  tow- 


98     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

ered  above  his  fellows  who  were  unable  to  enter 
into  his  ideals!  Harken!  **Do  yon  not  yet 
understand  V^  ''  What,  could  ye  not  watch  with 
me  one  hourT'  Unless  he  had  a  good  pre- 
ventive for  lonesomeness  surely  the  human 
heart  of  Jesus  would  have  been  one  of  the  lone- 
somest  hearts  that  ever  beat.  From  his  pre- 
ventive we  get  as  our  prescription  for  the  lone- 
someness of  life:  Fellowship  with  the  Father 
that  makes  for  Christlike  fellowship  with 
others. 


III.     CHRISTIAN  FELLOWSHIP  WITH  GOD 

According  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Jesus  said 
to  his  disciples:  **Ye  shall  be  scattered,  every 
one  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  me  alone:  and 
yet  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with 
me."  With  a  Christlike  sense  of  fellowship 
with  God  many  an  otherwise  lonesome  heart 
can  say:  *^ Though  the  hand  of  disease  touch 
me  and  on  a  bed  of  suffering,  away  from  former 
work  and  friends,  I  languish  alone;  though  a 
secret  trouble  dry  up  the  wellsprings  of  my 
former  joy  and  in  the  privacy  of  my  house  and 
heart  I  suffer  alone;  though  the  sun  of  pros- 
perity is  shut  out  by  thick  clouds  and  sworn 
friends  forsake  in  the  darkness  and  gloom; 
though  in  heeding  the  call  of  duty  I  am  misun- 


Lon 


esomeness  99 


derstood  and  left  severely  alone;  yea,  wlien  I 
walk  through  the  valley  and  come  to  the  river 
over  which  I  must  be  ferried  alone:  I  am  not 
alone,  the  Great  Companion  is  with  me."  It 
was  after  what  proved  to  be  his  last  communion 
with  his  people  when  nigh  to  death,  that  Henry 
Francis  Lyte  expressed  the  yearning  of  a  lone- 
some human  heart  for  fellowship  with  God : 

"Abide  witli  me!    Fast  falls  the  eventide; 
The  darkness  deepens,  Lord,  with  me  abide. 
When  other  helpers  fail  and  comforts  flee, 
Help  of  the  helpless,  oh,  abide  with  me!'' 

Above  all  else  it  is  the  consciousness  of  abid- 
ing fellowship  with  God  that  makes  the  present 
rich  and  fills  with  hope  the  future.  Through 
it  we  rise  above  the  loneliness  of  death  and  life, 
of  sin  and  suffering,  of  solitude  and  society.  In 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. 

It  is  true  that  many  today  live  seemingly  in- 
different to  the  possibility  of  having  this  sense 
of  union  and  communion  with  God.  They  are 
not  willing  to  acknowledge  that  they  are  lost. 
As  the  lost  Indian  said,  ^^  Indian  not  lost,  wig- 
wam lost,"  it  is  true  that  many  in  the  thought 
of  today  are  saying  it  is  not  they  but  God  who 
is  lost.  Yet,  while  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true 
that  deep  in  these  same  human  hearts,  at  times, 


lOO  Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

is  the  feeling  of  lonesomeness  and  a  yearning 
for  what  they  lack;  for 

"Souls  are  restless,  plagued,  impatient  things, 
All    dreams    and    unaccountable    desire; 
Crawling,  but  pestered  with  the  thought  of  wings, 
Spreading  through  every  inch  of  earth's  old  mire 
Mystical  hankerings  after  something  higher." 

In  the  haunting  horror  or  dark  uneasiness  of 
lonely  memories  of  sin,  in  lonely  impotence  be- 
fore an  overwhelming  grief,  in  lonely  insuffi- 
ciency in  the  presence  of  a  mighty  opportunity, 
there  is  a  longing  for — God. 

To  all  who  have  drunk  deeply  of  the  cup  of 
life  there  come  times  when,  in  the  midst  of  the 
highest  pleasures  as  well  as  in  the  deepest  pain, 
they  feel  that  they  are  alone  and  no  company 
of  earth,  not  even  the  company  of  the  dearest, 
can  satisfy  the  longings  within.  There  are  times 
when  the  best  that  is  within  rises  up  against 
the  human  barriers  to  perfect  fellowship,  when 
the  fountain  of  love  wells  up  until  the  soul  longs 
to  be  known  at  its  worst  as  well  as  at  its  best — 
*'to  be  completely  known  and  all  forgiven." 
There  are  times  when  the  pain  of  individuality 
seems  greater  almost  than  can  be  borne  and 
there  comes  a  glimpse  of  the  ocean  of  yearning 
back  of  pantheistic  thought  and  a  gleam  of  that 
which  makes  for  mystic  rapture.    Then,  then, 


Lonesomeness  loi 


liowever  erroneous  the  translation  of  its  yearn- 
ing, the  restless  heart  cries  out  for  God — that 
his  completeness  flow  round  our  incomplete- 
ness, round  our  restlessness  his  rest. 

Six  weeks  in  a  cabin  on  a  cliff  above  a  creek 
among  the  mountains,  and,  yet,  no  great  hunt- 
ing experience,  not  even  a  good  fish-story  to 
tell.  No  stories  of  physical  exploits — only 
visions,  from  among  the  mountains!  Service 
sang: 

''Let  Tis  probe  the  silent  places,  let  us  seek  what  luck  be- 
tide us; 

Let  us  journey  to  a  lonely  land  I  know. 

There's  a  whisper  in  the  night-wind,  there's  a  star  a-gleam 
to  guide  us, 

And  the  wind  is  calling,  calling,  ...  let  us  go.*' 

In  these  *^ silent  places"  of  **a  lonely  land  I 
know"  there  were  no  interviews  to  disturb  the 
eloquent  silences  of  God.  Hitherto  mountains 
had  occasioned  wonder  and  awe  as  representing 
the  majesty  and  transcendence  of  Deity,  but 
weeks  in  their  presence  made  for  an  intimacy, 
a  fellowship  with  them,  until  the  great  Reality 
became  the  Christlike  God — the  mighty  king 
became  the  gracious  father.  One  early  morn- 
ing out  in  the  open,  where  two  mountain-made 
valleys  sought  each  other  as  if  they  wanted  to 
be  one,  in  the  grey  dawn,  as  I  compared  the 


I02     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

stable  white  of  the  snow  upon  the  mountain 
peaks  with  the  living  white  of  the  roaring  tor- 
rent, a  bird  lit  on  a  treetop  and,  looking  east- 
ward, waited  in  reverent  expectation.  Above 
the  mountain  rose  the  sun  in  all  his  golden 
glory.    Upwelling,  came  Ruamah's  song: 

"For  new,  and  new,  and  ever-new 
The  golden  bud  within  the  blue; 
And  every  morning  seems  to  say: 
'There^s  something  happy  on  the  way 
And  God  sends  love  to  you.' " 

Instinctively  I  knew  Him,  felt  Him  palpably 
present,  ineffably  near. 

That  this  God-consciousness  may  be  obtained 
by  different  persons  in  somewhat  different 
ways  has  already  been  suggested.  It  may  well 
be  emphasised  here.  Quizzed  theologically  by 
a  good  deacon,  his  pastor  turned  and  asked: 
**Well,  what  to  you  is  the  heart  of  the  whole 
thing  f  He  replied,  **  Fellowship  with  God 
that  means  a  good  life.''  Asked,  *'If  one  who 
lived  a  good  life  said  he  had  fellowship  with 
God  but  did  not  get  it  in  the  way  you  did, 
would  you  say  that  he  did  not  have  it  at  all?" 
he  promptly  answered  **No."  **If  three  men 
went  in  at  the  three  different  doors  of  our 
church  building,  though  no  two  of  them  en- 
tered by  the  same  door,  would  not  all  three 


Lonesomeness  103 


be  inside  the  church  T'  He  heartily  affirmed 
that  it  was  not  the  particular  entrance  that 
mattered,  so  much  as  the  fact  of  the  entering; 
that  the  particular  way  one  got  this  fellowship 
with  God  was  a  question  of  secondary  impor- 
tance. Pre-eminently  the  important  thing  was 
the  fellowship  with  God  itself.  *^Good!"  ex- 
claimed the  pastor  enthusiastically,  **Hold  on 
to  that  and  you  will  find  it  the  guiding  thread 
for  the  theological  labyrinth  of  today. ' '  A  Sal- 
vationist may  get  it  in  one  way  and  a  profes- 
sor of  philosophy  in  another.  The  important 
thing  is  not  the  method  of  getting  it,  but  the 
actual  possession  of  a  sense  of  ^^fellowship  with 
God  that  means  a  good  life."  This  is  the 
Christlike  cure  for  sinfulness,  wrongness,  lone- 
someness. 

To  condition  it  otherwise  than  by  the  honest 
desire  and  will  to  be  righteously  at  one  with 
God  is  to  rob  the  sinful,  lonesome  heart  of  man, 
and  to  depart  from  the  big  simplicity  of  the 
essential  Gospel  that  Jesus  lived  and  preached. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  theologise  con- 
cerning his  death  to  make  his  preaching  gospel- 
preaching.  While  his  death  may  be  considered 
his  most  potent  sermon  on  the  Gospel,  yet  he 
had  been  preaching  the  Gospel  throughout  his 
ministry.    Well  may  the  Christian  sing: 


I04     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

''In  the  cross   of  Christ  I  glory, 
Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time; 
All   the   light   of  sacred   story 
Gathers  round  its  head  sublime." 

In  Ms  glorying,  however,  lie  should  not  for- 
get whose  cross  it  is ;  and  that  the  explanation 
of  its  power  is  the  religious  life  of  him  who 
died  thereon.  In  determining  the  saving  sig- 
nificance of  Jesus'  death  due  emphasis  should 
be  given  to  the  significance  of  his  life.  "We 
are  on  the  way  to  wisdom  concerning  the  mean- 
ing of  his  death  when  *'we  would  see  Jesus'' 
in  his  life  upon  the  earth.  Only  thus  shall  we 
get  a  theory  of  the  atonement  that  will  express 
the  thought  of  today. 

Each  of  the  outstanding  theories  of  the  atone- 
ment has  been  an  expression  of  its  age.  The 
ransom  theory,  that  held  sway  for  centuries, 
was  the  expression  of  an  age  of  brigandage  and 
piracy,  when  captives  were  taken  for  the  ran- 
som they  would  bring.  In  its  development  it 
found  revolting  expression  in  the  figure  of 
Peter  Lombard  that  the  cross  was  a  mouse- 
trap baited  with  the  blood  of  Jesus.  Th^ 
thought  was  that  God  tricked  and  caught  the 
Devil  by  what  purported  to  be  a  ransom  price. 
Yet  this  crude  theory  had  at  its  heart  the  truth 
expressed  in  the  beautifully  suggestive  figure 
of  Scripture:  *'his  life  a  ransom  for  many.' 


>> 


Lonesomeness  105 


Following  the  ransom  theory,  the  satisfac- 
tion theory  of  Anselm  represented  an  age  of 
chivalry,  when  ^' satisfaction"  had  to  be  ren- 
dered for  sin's  affront  to  the  *^ honour"  of 
God.  Later  still,  in  the  substitution  theory, 
representing  an  age  of  jurisprudence,  God  was 
the  judge  whom  Jesus  appeased.  Whatever 
the  crude  and  even  immoral  extremes  to  which 
these  and  other  great  representative  theories 
went,  yet  at  the  heart  of  each  is  a  great  truth 
expressed  in  keeping  with  the  age  it  represents. 
In  this  age,  dominated  as  we  have  seen  by  the 
thought  of  immanence,  which  has  revitalised  the 
doctrine  of  the  trinity,  the  thought  of  God  ^*in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself"  has 
revitalised  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement. 

Free  from  later  theological  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal additions,  as  revealed  in  the  life  and  words 
of  Jesus  it  is  so  simple  that  ^4ts  simplicity  has 
almost  been  its  undoing."  Yet  this  source  of 
its  peril  has  been  a  great  secret  of  its  power. 
Its  big,  simple,  potent  thought  repeated  in  a 
word  is  this :  God,  revealed  not  simply  through 
the  words  of  Jesus  but  in  Jesus  himself,  is  an 
overflowing  fountain  of  gracious  fellowship; 
and  those  who  will  may  there  refresh  their 
lonesome  souls,  free  themselves  from  the  domi- 
nance of  evil,  and  fit  themselves  for  joyous 


lo6     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

Christlike  relationship  with  their  fellows. 
Christlike  fellowship  with  Christlike  Deity  im- 
plies a  Christlike  attitude  to  others. 


IV.     CHRISTIAN  FELLOWSHIP  WITH  MAN 

This,  too,  is  an  antidote  to  lonesomeness. 
For  ideal  fellowship,  of  course,  there  must  be 
not  only  a  flow  of  sympathy  and  love  from  one 
heart  to  another,  but  also  a  loving  sympathetic 
flow  in  return.  Naturally  craving  sympathy 
from  others,  when  it  is  not  received  man  com- 
monly seeks  no  fellowship  with  them.  If  he 
would  unselfishly  sympathise  with  others,  even 
if  they  did  not  reciprocate,  there  would  be  an 
association  with  them  that  would  lessen  loneli- 
ness. Is  any  lonely!  Let  him  seek  another 
who  is  lonelier,  for  *^  there  are  lonely  hearts  to 
cherish  while  the  days  are  going  by."  Does 
any  shed  secret  tears  over  a  sorrow  in  which 
no  one  comforteth?  Let  her  go  among  the  sad 
and  sorrowing,  and  in  wiping  away  their  tears 
there  will  come  a  glow  within  that  will  help 
dry  up  her  own.  Is  there  a  barrier  between 
a  man  and  those  with  whom  he  ought  to  come  in 
closest  touch!  Let  him  do  them  a  kindness  and 
the  barrier  is  shaken.  Let  him  repeat  it  and  the 
barrier  falls.  The  hand  of  kindness  unlocks 
the  door  of  many  a  fast-closed  heart.    The  hand 


Lonesomeness  107 


of  kindness  draws  not  only  the  recipient  to  the 
giver  but  the  giver  to  the  recipient.  Captain 
Marryat,  as  a  midshipman,  saved  the  life  of 
an  officer  who  had  bullied  him  and  whom  he 
hated ;  but  from  that  time  he  loved  him  with  an 
increasing  love. 

In  his  * ^ Sentimental  Journey''  Sterne  left 
something  here  for  the  lonely  hearts  that  pass : 
*^I  pity  the  man/'  said  he,  *^who  can  travel 
from  Dan  to  Beersheba  and  cry:  '  'Tis  all 
barren,'  and  so  it  is  and  so  is  all  the  world  to 
him  who  will  not  cultivate  the  fruits  it  offers. 
I  declare,  said  I,  clapping  my  hands  cheerily 
together,  that  were  I  in  a  desert  I  would  find 
out  wherewith  in  it  to  call  forth  my  affections. 
If  I  could  not  do  better  I  would  fasten  them 
upon  some  sweet  myrtle  or  seek  some  melan- 
choly cypress  to  connect  myself  to.  I  would 
court  their  shade  and  greet  them  kindly  for 
their  protection.  I  would  cut  my  name  upon 
them  and  swear  that  they  were  the  loveliest 
trees  throughout  the  desert.  If  their  leaves 
withered  I  would  teach  myself  to  mourn.  And 
when  they  rejoiced  I  would  rejoice  along  with 
them."  If  sweet  myrtles  do  not  abound  mel- 
ancholy cypresses  do.  He  who  loses  his  life 
for  others  finds  it  again  and  greatly  purified. 
He  finds  for  himself  fellowship  with  others  and 


io8     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

increasing  fellowship  with  God  who,  for  others, 
lessens  the  lonesomeness  of  life.  A  Christ- 
like cure  and  preventive  for  lonesomeness  leads 
inevitably  to  altruism. 


CHAPTER  IX 
OTHERS 

I.     IN  THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHING  OF  JESUS 

OF  the  Imitation  of  Christ/'  the  famous 
book  already  cited,  may  fairly  be  said 
to  be  represented  by  such  sentences  as 
these:  **Fly  the  tumult  of  the  world  as  much 
as  thou  canst;  for  the  treating  of  worldly  af- 
fairs is  a  great  hindrance,  although  it  be  done 
with  sincere  intention;  for  we  are  quickly  de- 
filed, and  enthralled  by  vanity — 1:10:1.''  *^0 
that  we  had  nothing  else  to  do,  but  always  with 
mouth  and  whole  heart  to  praise  our  Lord  God — 
1:25:7."  ^^  Unless  a  man  be  set  free  from  all 
creatures,  he  cannot  wholly  attend  unto  divine 
things — 3:31:1."  Because  of  this,  Dean  Mil- 
man,  together  with  much  that  was  complimen- 
tary, in  his  review  of  the  book,  wrote :  **  Never 
was  misnomer  so  glaring,  if  justly  considered, 
as  the  title  of  the  book,  the  *  Imitation  of  Christ.' 
That  which  distinguished  Christ,  that  which 
distinguished  Christ's  apostles,  that  which  dis- 

109 


no     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

tinguislies  Christ's  religion — the  Love  of  Man — ^ 
is  entirely  and  absolutely  left  out." 

The  significance  of  this  is  seen  in  a  sug- 
gestive story  from  the  gospels,  in  which  is  made 
not  only  clear  but  emphatic  that  Christlikeness 
implies  love  for  man  as  well  as  for  God.  It  is 
a  story  of  a  common  question  and  its  uncom- 
mon answer.  The  place,  time,  and  whether  the 
question  was  asked  captiously  or  not,  are  mat- 
ters of  secondary  importance.  The  questioner 
was  a  lawyer.  **  Teacher, '*  he  asked,  ^*  which  is 
the  great  commandment  in  the  lawT'  And 
Jesus  said:  **Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul 
and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  great  and 
first  commandment."  So  far,  probably,  the 
answer  was  a  common  one;  but  instead  of  con- 
fining himself  to  these  great  words  from  Deu- 
teronomy concerning  love  for  God,  Jesus  went 
on  to  say:  *^And  a  second  like  unto  it  is  this, 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  On 
these  two  commandments  the  whole  law  hang- 
eth,  and  the  prophets." 

The  words  of  the  second  were  taken  from 
Leviticus,  where  they  seem  to  have  been  used 
only  incidentally,  and  where  the  word  neigh- 
bour did  not  have  the  full  meaning  that  Jesus 
put  into  it.  In  his  social  parable  of  the  good 
Samaritan  he  so  broadened  the  meaning  of  the 


Others  III 

word  that  it  included  anyone  in  need.  In  an- 
swering the  lawyer's  question,  therefore,  he 
took  an  incidental  passage  concerning  love  for 
neighbour,  enlarged  the  meaning  of  the  word 
neighbour,  and  put  the  whole  passage  along- 
side the  one  in  Deuteronomy  concerning  love 
for  God. 

The  significance  of  this  great  answer  is  this : 
Although  only  one  commandment  was  asked  for 
and  expected,  to  avoid  a  one-sided  presenta- 
tion of  religion  a  second  commandment  was 
given.  Special  care  was  taken  to  put  love  of 
neighbour  with  love  of  God  as  summing  up  the 
law  and  the  prophets.  Paul  goes  so  far  as  to 
write  to  the  Galatians :  ' '  The  whole  law  is  ful- 
filled in  one  word,  even  in  this:  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself. ' '  Jesus  and  Paul, 
therefore,  insist  that  religion  should  concern 
itself  not  only  with  the  relation  between  the 
individual  and  God,  but  also  with  the  relation 
between  the  individual  and  his  fellows.  **God 
and  one  man  could  make  any  other  religion,'' 
said  Dr.  Parkhurst,  ^^but  it  requires  God  and 
two  men  to  make  Christianity."  It  asks  not 
simply,  ^*Adam,  where  art  thouf "  with  respect 
to  God,  but,  *^Cain,  where  is  thy  brother,"  and 
what  hast  thou  done  to  himi 

The  greatest  ministry  was  that  of  saving  men 


112     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

out  of  their  lonesomeness  and  sin  into  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father.  This  salvation  is  pic- 
turesquely represented  in  the  story  of  Zao- 
chaeus,  in  which  Luke  writes  that  Jesus  said: 
**The  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost.''  History  and  the  observation 
of  life  today  show  that  the  mission  of  Jesus  as 
thus  described  was  a  success.  Through  his  com- 
ing millions  have  been  saved  from  dangerous 
wanderings  in  the  worst  wilds  of  sin  and  have 
been  brought  into  a  pure,  sweet,  loving  fellow- 
ship with  God.  His  seeking  was  successful  be- 
cause it  was  eager.  The  *  *  straightways ' '  of 
Mark's  gospel  are  suggestive  of  this  eagerness. 
We  read  that  his  ministry  to  the  multitudes 
was  so  zealous  that  when  his  friends  heard  of 
it  they  went  out  to  lay  hold  on  him;  for,  they 
said,  *^He  is  beside  himself."  His  seeking  was 
successful  because  it  was  persistent.  It  was 
so  persistent  that  it  killed  him.  Such  was  his 
determination  to  save  others  that  himself  he 
could  not  save.  As  his  arrest  by  his  friends 
showed  his  eagerness,  his  arrest  by  his  enemies 
and  their  wounding  of  him  to  his  death  showed 
his  persistence  in  seeking  to  save.  Unlike  the 
hireling,  who  fleeth,  as  the  good  shepherd  Jesus 
laid  down  his  life. 


Others  113 

II.     CHURCHES  AS  SEARCH  PARTIES 

Further,  his  seeking  was  successful  because 
it  became  an  organised  one.  He  became  the 
leader  of  a  growing  company  of  seekers.  We 
read  **And  he  goeth  up  into  a  mountain,  and 
calleth  unto  him  whom  he  himself  would;  and 
they  went  unto  him.  And  he  appointed  twelve 
that  they  might  be  with  him  and  that  he  might 
send  them  forth'' — to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost.  From  this  society  of  which 
he  was  president  organised  Christianity  has 
grown.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind  by  the  many 
church-members  today  that  the  different 
churches  are  just  so  many  search  parties  seek- 
ing the  lost. 

Let  an  illustration  bring  home  the  meaning 
of  lost  and  so  incite  to  seek  and  to  save.  The 
word  went  out:  *^Earl  Hines  is  lost.''  He  was 
a  lad  of  but  six  summers.  He  was  seen  last 
on  the  edge  of  the  picnic  grounds  at  Prince's 
Lodge,  a  small  place  so  named  because  the 
father  of  Queen  Victoria  once  resided  there. 
It  was  surrounded  by  salt  water  and  dense 
woods.  Straying  into  these  woods,  in  which 
there  is  many  a  dangerous  precipice  and  bog. 
Earl  Hines  was  lost.  Just  what  that  word 
meant  as  applied  to  him  no  one  knew.  If  he 
had  fallen  over  a  precipice  to  his  death,  or 


114     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

perished  in  a  bog,  or  been  drowned  in  a  lake, 
the  word  would  have  a  meaning  dark  indeed. 
If,  however,  he  still  lived  and  there  was  any 
possibility  of  his  being  restored  to  his  par- 
ents, he  was  still  lost,  but  the  word  would 
not  have  so  dark  a  meaning.  The  hope  was 
that  he  was  still  alive  and  it  inspired  to  a  seek- 
ing that  was  sucees^sful  because  eager,  per- 
sistent, and  well  organised.  What  a  motley 
crowd  we  were — city  officials  and  labourers, 
professional  and  business  men,  soldiers  and 
civilians,  beardless  youth  and  hoary  heads — all 
sorts  and  conditions — but  all  there  for  busi- 
ness. As  the  number  of  the  searchers  increased 
different  companies  were  organised.  As  the 
long  lines  were  being  formed  to  search  thor- 
oughly section  after  section  of  the  woods,  many 
in  their  eagerness  became  impatient  of  the  de- 
lay. When  opportunity  was  given,  through 
densest  woods,  over  rocks,  through  bogs,  hour 
after  hour  continued  the  eager,  persistent 
march.  It  was  an  experience  never  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

It  helped  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
meaning  of  lost  and  the  mission  of  the  Church. 
Those  are  lost  who  are  out  of  right  relation- 
ship with  God,  who  have  not  the  joy  and  power 
of  fellowship  with  him,  who  are  in  dangerous 
places  without  the  sweet  consciousness  of  his 


Others  1 15 

presence,  who  already  are  suffering  from  the 
consequences  of  sin  but  who  might  be  brought 
into  saving  fellowship  with  the  Father — a  pos- 
sibility inspiring  to  eager,  persistent,  organised 
work  to  save  them.  This  is  the  great  mission 
of  the  Church. 

In  the  successful  search  for  the  lost  boy 
the  seekers  were  instructed  to  work  together. 
They  did.  Dominated  by  the  thought  of  the 
best  way  of  saving  him,  the  different  companies 
took  different  sections,  thus  supplementing  in- 
stead of  interfering  with  each  other's  work. 
It  is  for  the  different  churches  to  be  so  domi- 
nated by  the  thought  of  saving  men  that 
thoughts  of  individual  glory  will  sink  out  of 
sight,  and  instead  of  being  in  each  other's  way 
and  needlessly  covering  the  same  ground  they 
should  aim  to  supplement  each  other's  work. 

With  the  instruction  to  work  together  for 
the  finding  of  the  boy  emphasis  was  given  to  the 
thought  of  individual  responsibility.  The  care- 
lessness of  some  one  member  of  the  party  might 
mean  that  the  dark  meaning  of  the  word  lost 
would  be  changed  to  the  darker;  and  the  boy's 
danger  end  in  the  boy's  death.  It  is  for  Chris- 
tians, though  organised  into  churches,  to  feel 
the  responsibility  of  **  individual  work  for  the 
individuals"  who  are  lost.  A  tremendous  re- 
sponsibility it  is.     In  a  small  town  in  Nova 


Ii6     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

Scotia  a  baby  boy  was  ill.  The  physicians  said 
there  was  no  hope.  The  mother  said  he  must 
not  die.  In  an  agony  of  soul  she  prayed  and 
felt  her  prayer  was  heard.  Years  went  by. 
The  boy  grew  up,  went  out  and  down.  Again 
her  soul  was  exercised  with  pain  deeper  and 
more  prolonged,  until  one  night,  looking  upon 
him  in  the  unsightliness  of  his  drunken  stupor, 
quick  pain  crazed  her  to  cry:  *^0h,  God,  why 
did  you  answer  my  prayer  T'  The  death  of  a 
boy's  body  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  death 
of  his  soul.  It  is  earth's  greatest  evil  to  be 
away  from  God  and  its  highest  joy  to  have 
fellowship  with  him.  To  awaken  to  this  is  to 
be  eager  to  save.  To  have  this  thought  abide 
is  to  persist  in  the  search,  to  be  like  the  shep- 
herd of  the  parable  who  goes  after  that  which 
is  lost  *^  until  he  find  if 

It  is  the  work  of  those  who  would  be  Christ- 
like not  only  to  bring  others  into  fellowship 
with  God  but  to  help  them  to  keep  in  this  fel- 
lowship and  to  go  even  farther  into  a  realisa- 
tion of  its  worth.  To  this  end  encouragement 
should  be  given  to  both  private  and  public  wor- 
ship. As  the  word  itself  suggests,  worship 
is  for  the  appreciation  of  the  worth  of  God 
to  man.  Private  worship  is  most  important, 
but  public  worship  is  also  very  important  in 


Others  117 

maintaining  and  increasing  the  saving  fellow- 
ship with  God. 

III.     THE  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

As  a  means  of  helping  others  to  an  ever-in- 
creasing fellowship  with  God  and  as  a  worthy 
end  in  itself,  the  Christlike  will  ever  keep  in 
mind  the  material  surroundings  and  needs  of 
man.  The  ^^ Imitation  of  Christ"  reads:  **0 
that  thou  mightest  never  have  need  to  eat,  or 
drink,  or  sleep ;  but  mightest  always  praise  God, 
and  only  employ  thyself  in  spiritual  exercises. '^ 
Paul,  however,  wrote;  ** Whether,  therefore, 
ye  eat,  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do,  do  all 
to  the  glory  of  God.''  According  to  the  gos- 
pels, Jesus  healed  and  fed  man's  body  as  well 
as  man's  soul.  One  of  the  reasons  why  the 
Jewish  religious  leaders  opposed  him  was  that 
he  treated  as  sacred  what  to  them  was  secular. 

A  striking  synagogue-picture !  It  is  the  Sab- 
bath day.  Jesus  had  entered  the  synagogue. 
There  is  a  man  there  with  a  withered  hand. 
The  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  also,  are  there. 
*  ^  They  watched  him,  whether  he  would  heal  him 
on  the  Sabbath  day;  that  they  might  accuse 
him.  .  .  .  And  he  saith  unto  them,  Is  it  lawful 
on  the  Sabbath  day  to  do  good,  or  to  do  harm? 
to  save  a  life,  or  to  kill!"    Immediately  pre- 


Ii8     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

ceding  this  is  the  story  of  the  criticism  of  the 
hungry  disciples.  In  passing  along,  to  satisfy 
their  hunger,  they  plncked  a  little  grain  on  the 
Sabbath  and  were  criticised  for  thus  engaging 
in  a  secular  work  on  a  sacred  day.  What  an 
answer  was  that:  **The  sabbath  was  made 
for  man  and  not  man  for  the  sabbath ! ' ' 

In  view  of  all  this  it  is  not  enough  to  * 'fol- 
low Christ"  in  a  pietistic  way.  That  following 
him  implies  much  in  daily  social  life  should  be 
presented  with  no  uncertain  sound.  Christians 
should  take  to  heart  the  truth  that  business  and 
politics  are  sacred  and  that  men  may  be  in  the 
service  of  God  in  these  occupations  just  as  truly 
as  in  meditating  in  solitude,  baptising  the  liv- 
ing, or  burying  the  dead.  The  Christlike  should 
seek  to  ethicise  industry  as  well  as  theology  and 
make  moral  issues  paramount  in  the  political 
world.  It  is  thus  they  should  manifest  the 
Christlike  love  of  man  which  so  conspicuously 
lacks  expression  in  the  so-called  ^*  Imitation  of 
Chrisf    We  have  not  so  learned  Christ. 

Against  the  dark  negation  of  the  individual- 
istic morality  as  represented  by  that  great 
mediaeval  book,  the  modern  apostle  of  social 
morality  may  write  his  social  gospel  of  Christ- 
likeness.  WTaile  such  a  presentation  gains  much 
through  picturesque  contrast,  there  is  danger 
that  it  fail  in  historical  perspective.    A  knowl- 


Others  119 

edge  of  the  fourteen  centuries  preceding  ^*The 
Imitation  of  Christ"  would  honeycomb  the  con- 
demning with  condoning;  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  five  centuries  since  it  would  quicken  con- 
science because  the  gospel  of  social  righteous- 
ness is  not  being  more  widely  preached  and 
practised  than  it  is. 

If  it  be  kept  in  mind  that,  speaking  generally, 
those  antecedent  fourteen  centuries  were  domi- 
nated by  the  thought  that  all  matter  is  essen- 
tially evil,  the  book's  marked  distinction  be- 
tween secular  and  sacred,  its  magnifying  of 
the  Church  as  opposed  to  the  world,  its  other- 
worldliness,  its  exhortation  to  deny  and  mortify 
the  flesh,  its  discountenancing  of  social  rela- 
tions as  ministering  to  the  fleshly  appetites  and 
desires,  its  consideration  of  business  and  poli- 
tics as  at  best  necessary  evils  and  so  its  inspira- 
tion to  abstinence  from  them  all  become  mani- 
festations of  a  sincere  but  somewhat  misguided 
striving  toward  the  ideal  life.  If,  too,  in  addi- 
tion to  this  implicit  and  explicit  philosophy 
concerning  matter,  it  be  remembered  that  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  a  scientific  study  of  society 
in  those  times,  and  that  Christianity  was  per- 
petually exposed  to  the  sacramental  and  ritual- 
istic influences  of  the  other  religions  with  which 
it  came  into  touch  and  from  which  it  rapidly 
received  converts,  who  naturally  carried  over 


I20     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

something  of  these  influences  from  their  own 
faiths,  it  can  easily  be  understood  how  so  much 
space  in  the  book  was  **  concerning  the  com- 
munion'' and  so  little  concerning  social  duties. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  it  be  remembered  that, 
in  the  five  centuries  since  the  book  was  writ- 
ten, philosophy  has  changed  in  its  attitude  to 
matter;  that,  in  the  incoming  of  the  ** sciences, 
sociology  inevitably  found  a  place  among 
them;''  and  that  the  facilities  for  travelling 
and  the  changed  international  relations  have 
made  for  a  more  democratic  organisation  of 
society:  the  naturalness  of  the  modem  em- 
phasis upon  social  morality  becomes  very  evi- 
dent— so  evident,  in  fact,  that  the  wonder  is  that 
this  more  social  Christlikeness  is  not  more 
prevalent  today  than  it  is.  Surely,  therefore, 
it  is  not  inappropriate  to  use  the  words  of  the 
Mars  Hill  speech:  **The  times  of  ignorance 
therefore  God  overlooked;  but  now  he  com- 
mandeth  men  that  they  should  all  everywhere 
repent"  of  their  neglect  of  the  *^ social  gospel" 
and  guard  against  that  ** heresy  of  the  ages" 
the  false  distinction  between  sacred  and  secu- 
lar. 

A  modern  lawyer,  about  to  turn  preacher, 
wrote  to  Dr.  Parkhurst  that  the  sad  scenes  in 
the  criminal  courts  had  brought  him  to  the 
point  where  he  was  thinking  of  casting  aside  hia 


Others  121 

*^  bright  future  in  law,  to  enter  the  service  of 
the  Lord!"  That  is  akin  to  the  modem  de- 
liverance that  politics  has  no  place  for  the 
decalogue  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Both 
are  extreme  illustrations  of  the  modern  saying: 
business  is  business  and  politics  is  politics,  but 
religion  is  religion — the  implication  being  that 
religion  must  be  kept  separate  from  the  other 
two.  Instead,  religion  has  to  do  with  every  de- 
partment of  human  life.  It  is  concerned  not 
simply  with  individual  cases  to  be  snatched  as 
brands  from  the  burning,  but  with  general 
causes — laws,  institutions,  public  opinion — that 
have  to  do  with  the  welfare  of  the  whole  man. 
The  Christlike  message  today  is:  The  time  is 
fulfilled  and  the  kingdom  of  social  righteous- 
ness is  at  hand.  Eepent  ye  and  believe  in  this 
full-orbed  gospel. 

IV.     VICARIOUS  SACRIFICE 

The  bringing  in  of  this  kingdom  means  sac- 
rifice. A  full-orbed  gospel  today  has  the  cross 
at  its  heart.  Perhaps  no  passage  of  Scripture, 
therefore,  needs  to  be  iterated  more  today  than 
this:  ^*And  he  called  unto  him  the  multitude 
with  his  disciples,  and  said  unto  them,  If  any 
man  would  come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself, 
and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me.'' 


122     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

"Who  best  can  drink  his  cup  of  woe, 
Triumphant  over  pain, 
Who  patient  bears  his  cross  below, 
He  follows  in  his  train." 

In  being  equal  to  these  mighty  days  cross- 
bearing  means  more  than  *  *  taking  part  in  meet- 
ing." It  means  vicarious  suffering  for  the 
world's  good.  Our  loved  ones  at  the  front  who 
have  suffered,  bled,  and  died  for  the  sake  of 
democracy  have  entered  into  fellowship  with 
Christ's  suffering,  have  had  a  share  in  the 
vicarious  atonement  needed  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world.  The  spirits  of  our  dear  dead  may 
well  say  to  the  generations  to  come:  These 
are  our  bodies  broken  for  you.  Many,  too,  not 
permitted  to  go  to  the  front  have  nevertheless 
been  permitted  to  share  in  this  sacrificial  sal- 
vation. One  of  our  boys  wrote  me  that  his 
mother's  sacrifice  was  greater  than  his.  It 
was  harder  to  give  than  to  go.  No  wonder 
Marshal  Joffre  could  not  read  in  a  steady  voice 
the  letter  of  a  French  mother  to  her  son  in 
Canada :  *  ^  My  dear  Son :  You  will  be  grieved 
to  learn  that  your  two  brothers  have  been 
killed.  Their  country  needed  them  and  they 
gave  everything  they  had  to  save  her.  Your 
country  needs  you  and  while  I  am  not  going  to 
suggest  that  you  return  to  fight  for  France,  if 
you  do  not  return  at  once,  never  come."    That 


Others  123 

old  spirit  of  motherhood  that  told  the  son  to 
return  with  his  shield  or  on  it,  is  not  dead. 

Sacrificial  giving  and  going  are  common- 
places in  war.  The  imperative  need  is  for  their 
manifestation  in  times  of  peace.  Christlike  re- 
construction will  be  vicarious.  As  long  as  evil 
is  in  the  world  the  way  of  the  cross  will  be  an 
inevitable  part  of  the  way  of  helping  others. 
Let  no  one  minimise  the  courage  of  those  fight- 
ing for  liberty  on  the  bloody  field.  But  let 
it  not  be  forgotten  that  many  of  them  would 
find  it  easier  to  risk  their  lives  on  the  battlefield 
than  to  remain  poor  honestly  and  to  speak  and 
live  the  truth  despite  conventions  and  the  en- 
mity of  friends. 

Many,  especially  at  the  front,  are  getting  a 
vision  of  what  must  be  done  after  the  war  and 
the  uncommon  courage  that  will  be  needed  to 
do  it.  Such  was  one  of  the  truths  brought 
home  to  many  by  Hankey's  **A  Student  in 
Arms."  His  words,  therefore,  and  especially 
since  they  suggest  the  theme  of  the  next  chap- 
ter, may  well  bring  this  chapter  to  a  close.  In 
the  last  paragraph  of  his  chapter  on  **An  Ex- 
periment in  Democracy"  he  wrote :  ^^When  the 
war  is  over,  and  the  men  of  the  citizen  Army 
return  to  their  homes  and  their  civil  occupa- 
tions, will  they,  I  wonder,  remember  the  things 
that  they  have  learned?    If  so,  there  will  be  a 


124     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

new  and  better  England  for  the  children.  .  .  . 
Wonld  that  it  might  be  so!  But  perhaps  it  is 
more  likely  that  the  lessons  will  be  forgotten, 
and  that  men  will  slip  back  into  the  old  grooves. 
Much  depends  on  the  women  of  England.  If 
they  carefully  guard  the  ancient  ruts  against 
our  return,  and  if  their  gentle  fingers  press  us 
back  into  them,  we  shall  acquiesce;  but  if  at 
this  hour  of  crisis  they,  too,  have  seen  a  wider 
vision  of  national  unity,  and  learned  a  more 
catholic  charity,  the  future  is  indeed  radiant 
with  hope.'* 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  UNIT  OF  SOCIETY 

BECAUSE   of  the  great  importance  and 
supreme  delicacy  of  the  subject  of  this 
chapter  the  wisest  words  of  expert  testi- 
mony are  needed.    The  first  part  of  the  chapter, 
therefore,  will  consist  of  a  series  of  questions 
and  the  answers  of  specialists. 

I.     JESUS  AND  THE  FAMILY 

Decades  ago  Dr.  Elisha  Mulford  was  wont 
to  ntter  these  prophetic  and  suggestive  words : 
**  Sociology  is  the  coming  science  and  the  fam- 
ily holds  the  key  of  it."  Has  that  prophecy 
come  true? 

A  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  National 
League  for  the  Protection  of  the  Family,  Dr. 
E.  S.  Dike,  in  considering  **The  Problem  of 
the  Family,"  wrote  some  years  ago.  *^We  are 
coming  to  see  that  what  we  call  society  is  a 
most  interesting  as  well  as  most  important 
subject  of  scientific  study.  In  a  way  it  has 
been  studied  for  all  the  centuries  of  human 

12& 


126     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

learning.  But  we  are  now  at  work  on  it  in  the 
field  of  social  science,  with  sociology  and  the 
social  sciences  for  our  instruments.  In  pur- 
suit of  this  line  of  study  students  are  confronted 
everywhere  with  the  family  in  some  of  its 
forms.  In  its  history  they  find  in  great  degree 
the  story  of  the  other  great  social  institutions. 
And  it  has  become  apparent  that  with  ihQ  prog- 
ress of  social  science  students  must  continue  to 
be  interested  in  the  past,  present,  and  future 
of  the  family.  If  the  family,  or  rather  the 
home,  is  in  any  considerable  degree  to  social 
science  what  the  atom  is  in  physics  and  the  cell 
is  in  biology,  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  social 
science  must  follow  the  method  of  those 
sciences,  so  far  at  least  as  to  concentrate  at- 
tention on  its  study  and  discover  that  the  home 
contains  within  it  the  great  secrets  of  all  the 
social  sciences.  Especially  is  it  true  of  the 
problems  of  government,  economics,  religion, 
and  pedagogy,  that  they  all  need  a  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  home  as  an  indispensable  con- 
dition of  their  solution.  We  do  not  see  that 
our  corporations,  our  churches,  our  schools,  as 
well  as  our  municipal  organisations,  are  the  out- 
growth of  communal  institutions  of  long  ago 
and  that  the  history  of  the  modem  home  is 
closely  interwoven  with  their  rise  and  develop- 
ment.   We  rarely  get  beyond  some  conventional 


The  Unit  of  Society  127 

remarks  and  speak  of  the  family  as  the  ^unit 
of  society.'  It  would  puzzle  most  of  us  who 
use  that  phrase  to  tell  what  it  means,  even  in 
their  own  thought  of  it." 

Just  what  does  that  phrase  mean? 

Professor  Peabody  after  specialising  on  the 
problem  of  ^*  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Min- 
istry'' wrote:  *^The  social  teaching  of  Jesus, 
proceeding  from  a  wholly  different  point  of 
view,  lays  its  hand  on  the  same  key  of  social 
progress  which  is  now  indicated  by  the  social 
philosopher;  and  the  character  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  on  the  subject  is  one  whose  impor- 
tance could  not  be  adequately  appreciated  until 
the  researches  of  the  present  generation  had 
recalled  attention  to  the  problem  of  the  family. 
Modem  learning,  using  the  language  of  re- 
search, says,  *  The  family  is  the  unit  of  civilisa- 
tion.' Jesus,  using  the  language  of  Hebrew 
Scripture,  says,  ^The  twain  shall  become  one 
flesh.  What,  therefore,  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether let  not  man  put  asunder. '  ' ' 

The  whole  passage  reads  according  to  Mark : 
**And  there  came  unto  him  Pharisees,  and 
asked  him.  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away 
his  wife  ?  tempting  him.  And  he  answered  and 
said  unto  them,  What  did  Moses  command  you? 
And  they  said,  Moses  suffered  to  write  a  bill 
of  divorcement  and  to  put  her  away.   But  Jesus 


128     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

said  "Qiito  them,  For  your  hardness  of  heart  he 
wrote  you  this  commandment.  But  from  the 
beginning  of  the  creation,  male  and  female 
made  he  them.  For  this  cause  shall  a  man 
leave  his  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave 
to  his  wife ;  and  the  two  shall  become  one  flesh. 
.  .  .  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together, 
let  not  man  put  asunder.^'  Are  these  really  the 
words  of  Jesus? 

Professor  Shailer  Matthews,  after  brilliant 
work  on  ^^The  Social  Teaching  of  Jesus," 
wrote:  *^No  words  reported  as  those  of  Jesus 
are  more  certainly  his  than  these  concerning 
marriage  and  divorce.  In  none  of  his  teaching 
have  we  greater  economy  of  expression,  but  in 
none  is  his  meaning  less  in  doubt. '* 

What  is  its  meaning? 

Professor  E.  P.  Gould,  author  of  the  com- 
mentary on  Mark  in  the  International  Critical 
Series,  interpreted  the  thought  of  Jesus  in  this 
significant  passage  thus:  ** Jesus  nowhere 
shows  the  absolute  rationality  and  verity  of  his 
thought  more  than  here.  Spirituality  is  the 
very  core  of  that  thought,  but  it  never  misleads 
him  so  that  he  misses  the  material  facts.  And 
it  is  the  insistence  on  these  here  that  saves  him 
from  an  immoral  sentimentality.  Whatever 
may  underlie  marriage  in  the  realm  of  the  feel- 


The   Unit  of  Society  129 

ings,  it  is  itself  physical  and  produces  struc- 
tural unity/' 

What,  then,  according  to  Jesus,  is  the  rela- 
tion between  sex  and  love  in  marriage? 

Professor  E.  D.  Burton,  the  eminent  New 
Testament  exegete,  wrote  in  The  Biblical 
World:  *^The  controlling  factor  is  not  in  what 
the  law  of  Moses  may  chance  to  say,  but  in  the 
deep  fact  of  sex  as  an  element  of  human  na- 
ture. ^From  the  beginning  of  the  creation  male 
and  female  made  he  them.'  It  is  fair  to  as- 
sume that  these  words  on  Jesus'  lips  refer  not 
simply  to  the  physical  differentiation  of  the 
sexes,  which  man  shares  with  the  lower  ani- 
mals, but  to  all  that  sex  means  in  the  human 
species:  the  relation  that  it  creates  between 
husband  and  wife  as  beings  of  moral  nature, 
human  sensibilities,  and  sexual  modesty;  be- 
tween parent  and  child,  with  the  corresponding 
obligations  of  protection  and  affection  and  edu- 
cation. Sex  means  one  thing  to  the  dog;  it 
means  something  very  different  to  civilised 
man,  to  whom  and  of  whom  Jesus  spoke. 
Surely  we  have  but  imperfectly  apprehended 
Jesus  if  we  have  not  learned  that  the  principle 
of  love  is  supreme  in  his  teaching,  and  that  it 
takes  precedence  over  all  specific  injunctions. 
But  if  we  apply  this  principle  to  the  present 
case,  we  gain  as  the  interpretation  of  Jesus* 


130     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

teaching  for  practical  application  substantially 
this:  No  marriage  is  temporary;  no  divorce 
is  normal;  love  sets  no  limit  to  its  endurance; 
if  ever  the  dissolution  of  a  marriage  otherwise 
than  by  death  is  justified,  it  must  be  because 
circumstances  are  so  abnormal  that  love  itself 
demands  the  dissolution;  the  principle  of  love 
must  be  supreme,  and  must  be  applied  in  view 
of  all  the  facts^  of  which  most  fundamental  of 
all  is  the  nature  and  consequence  of  sex  in 


man.'' 


II.     BLESSING  AND  BANE 


Just  what  then  is  the  relation  of  sex  to  re- 
ligion? 

In  his  **  Psychological  Phenomena  of  Chris- 
tianity'' President  George  B.  Cutten  sums  up 
the  findings  of  specialists  thus :  **The  evidence 
for  this  relation  may  be  divided  into  three 
classes,  viz.:  historical,  pathological,  and  psy- 
chological. Early  religious  rites  were  largely 
sexual  and  orgiastic.  Especially  is  this  true  in 
phallicism,  the  worship  of  the  generative  prin- 
ciple. ...  A  glance  at  a  partial  list  of  sects 
which  have  had  some  abnormal  sexual  element 
at  least  attributed  to  them  shows  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus  have  been  far  from  free  from 
this  taint.  ...  In  our  own  times  the  connec- 
tion between  religion  and  sexual  phenomena 


The   Unit  of  Society  13 1 

is  largely  confined  to  revivals.  The  argument 
from  pathology  rests  upon  the  testimony  of 
many  alienists  to  the  effect  that  in  cases  of  in- 
sanity where  religious  delusions  predominate 
the  disturbance  usually  has  a  sexual  origin. 
On  this  point  there  appears  to  be  a  general 
agreement. 

**What  I  have  called  the  psychological  argu- 
ment has  two  phases  to  present :  the  connection 
between  human  and  divine  love,  as  having  a 
common  emotional  basis;  and  the  relation  be- 
tween sexuality  and  religious  awakening  during 
adolescence.  ...  It  seems  highly  probable  that 
human  love  has  its  root  in  the  sexual  instinct. 
Indirectly,  then,  divine  love  must  have  sprung 
from  the  same  source.  If  this  is  true,  we  can 
the  more  easily  trace  the  connection  between 
sexuality  and  religion,  and  understand  why 
religious  excitement,  stirring  as  it  does*  the 
primitive  elements  of  our  being,  should  degener- 
ate into  licentiousness." 

"While  the  question  this  suggests  of  the  funda- 
mental place  sex  has  in  the  evolution  of  so- 
ciety and  religion  is  one  of  great  interest,  what- 
ever view  be  taken,  its  chief  interest  is  im 
helping  to  understand  the  fundamental  nature 
of  the  influence  of  sex  in  society  today.  It  is 
with  this  we  are  specially  concerned.  What 
is  the  influence  of  sex  today? 


132     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

More  and  more  the  leaders  of  tliought  are 
appreciating  the  fundamental  importance  of 
this  influence.  Among  them  is  President  G. 
Stanley  Hall,  notably  in  his  great  work  on 
* 'Adolescence/'  On  the  importance  of  sex  at 
this  and  other  periods  of  life  his  words  are: 
*' There  is  great  reason  to  look  to  sex  for  the 
key  to  far  more  phenomena  of  both  body  and 
soul  at  this  as  at  other  times  of  life  than  we 
have  hitherto  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy. 
Sex  is  the  most  potent  and  magic  open  sesame 
to  the  deepest  mysteries  of  life,  death,  religion, 
and  love.  Each  sex  is  more  inclined  to  de- 
velop the  best  qualities  peculiar  to  itself  in  the 
presence  of  the  other.'' 

The  brightest  blessing  perverted  often  makes 
the  blackest  bane.    Is  that  so  with  sex? 

Dr.  Prince  A.  Morrow,  after  giving  a  socio- 
logical address,  in  which  he  showed  the  fre- 
quency of  the  pollution  of  the  home  indirectly 
by  the  brothel  and  the  bane  of  the  black  plague 
upon  wife,  offspring,  and  the  man  himself, 
summed  it  up  as  follows:  *'It  is  evident  that 
social  diseases  have  most  important  relations 
with  the  family.  They  are  directly  antagonistic 
to  all  that  the  family  stands  for  as  a  social 
institution — they  are  destructive  to  its  health, 
its  productivity,  and  its  social  efficiency.  They 
occasion    an    enormous    sacrifice   of   potential 


The   Unit  of  Society  133 

wealth  from  the  loss  of  citizens  to  the  state. 
Moreover,  they  distill  a  double  venom;  they 
poison  not  only  the  health,  but  the  peace, 
honour,  and  happiness  of  the  family.  Their 
prevention  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  problems 
of  social  hygiene  that  confronts  us  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  .  .  .  No  other  commentary  upon  the 
intolerable  situations  created  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  these  diseases  into  the  family  is  needed 
than  the  fact  that  so  many  women,  loyal  to  the 
highest  ideals  of  marriage,  devoted  to  home  and 
family,  are  driven  to  the  divorce  courts  as  a 
refuge.'' 

III.     SINFUL  SILENCE 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  great  evil  flour- 
ishes in  secrecy  and  ignorance,  is  not  silence 
concerning  it  unChristlike. 

Dr.  Morrow  in  his  book  * '  Social  Diseases  and 
Marriage''  inveighed  against  the  sinful  silence 
of  the  Church  as  represented  by  its  clergymen : 
**With  few  notable  exceptions,  the  clergy  may 
be  justly  criticised  for  their  indisposition  to 
touch  upon  the  social  evil.  With  a  fastidious- 
ness which  is  not  derived  from  the  teaching  or 
example  of  the  founder  of  Christianity,  they 
shrink  from  all  contact  with  this  social  leprosy. 
This  foul  ulcer  in  the  side  of  society  is  a  mys- 
terious horror  of  nastiness  which  they  do  not 


134     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

attempt  to  bind  up  and  cure,  but  pass  by  on 
the  other  side.  Sexual  sins,  lusts  of  the  flesh, 
fornication,  etc.,  appear  to  have  been  singled 
out  for  special  condemnation  by  the  apostolic 
teachers,  but  at  the  present  day  how  seldom  do 
the  clergy,  in  the  pulpit,  in  public  gatherings, 
or  in  private  exhortation,  inveigh  against  the 
vice  of  immorality  or  openly  condemn  that  con- 
ventional code  which  is  based  upon  the  false 
principle  that  sex  qualifies  sexual  sin!" 

Even  though  unchastity  is  spoken  against, 
somehow  the  utterance  lacksi  power.    Why? 

Dr.  Wilson,  author  of  *^The  American  Boy 
and  the  Social  Evil,"  gives  as  a  plain  word  of 
explanation:  ** Morality  and  pure  living  have 
few  champions  whose  loyalty  can  stand  the 
final  test.  The  Church  itself  is  full  of  slothful- 
ness,  insincerity,  and  covered  sin."  Few,  but 
to  the  point,  these  words  suggest  the  story  of 
Hung  Fung  the  Wise.  Asked  what  was  the 
empire's  great  danger  he  replied,  '*The  rat  in 
the  statue,"  explaining  that  because  of  the 
sacredness  of  these  statues  (to  ancestors)  the 
rats  could  neither  be  smoked  out  nor  drowned. 

Medical  men  have  spoken  plainly  about  the 
sinful  silence  of  the  Church.  How  about  the 
silence  of  medical  men? 

According  to  Professor  A.  B.  Wolfe:  **The 
medical  secret  of  the  physician  is  a  man-made 


The  Unit  of  Society  135 


bit  of  professional  ethics  that  sacrifices  every- 
thing— wife,  children,  honour,  health,  and  so- 
cial welfare — to  the  supposed  interest  of  the 
libertine  male,  even  though  hei  be  to  a  radiant 
angel  linked.  Whatever  the  present  legal  status 
of  the  medical  secret,  it  seems  clear  that  that 
institution  could  not  long  survive  under  the 
light  and  fire  of  a  public  opinion  which  women 
had  equal  part  with  men  in  shaping. ' '  Profes- 
sor Wolfe  has  suggested  the  question  of  legis- 
lation. God  speed  the  day  when  through  legis- 
lation, if  it  cannot  be  reached  in  any  other  way, 
there  will  be  no  marriages  through  which  at 
the  very  beginning  the  home  is  polluted  by  the 
white  slave  plague.  Better  legislation  is  im- 
peratively needed  to  prevent  haste,  clandestin- 
ity,  and  ill  health — often  with  more  or  less 
speedy  death — and  to  ensure  eugenic  children 
and  happy  homes.  If  w^e  had  better  marriage 
laws  we  would  have  fewer  divorces.  Since  it 
may  open  into  a  heaven  or  a  hell  our  legisla- 
tures are  fatefuUy  remiss  that  do  not  closely 
guard  the  gate  of  marriage. 

Church,  medicine,  and  legislation  are  remiss. 
How  about  the  school? 

Professor  Henderson  answered:  **No  apol- 
ogy is  made  for  urging  upon  teachers,  the  moral 
guides  of  the  nation,  the  duty  of  helping  in 
the  cause  of  fighting  the  black  plague  of  the 


136     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

world.  A  policy  of  concealment,  silence,  igno- 
rance, and  quackery  has  borne  its  monstrous 
brood  of  disease,  misery,  and  moral  degrada- 
tion. A  false  modesty  is  guilty  of  much  of  this 
giant  wrong.  .  .  .  The  truth  is  that  our  schools 
have  professed  to  teach  physiology,  hygiene, 
and  morality  and  have  neglected  vital  factors, 
the  function  of  elimination  of  waste  and  the 
function  of  reproduction.  Partly  in  conse- 
quence of  this  neglect  we  have  sexual  abuses, 
excesses,  and  the  plagues  of  venereal  diseases. 
It  is  high  time  to  recall  the  teaching  profession 
to  its  duty,  in  order  that  the  next  generation 
of  parents  may  be  better  fitted  to  rear  and  edu- 
cate a  wiser  and  healthier  race.*' 

What  about  the  sin  of  silence  in  the  home? 

Professor  George  Elliott  Howard,  author  of 
that  monumental  work,  ^*A  History  of  the  Mat- 
rimonial Institution,'*  expressed  himself  thus: 
*  ^  The  folly  of  parents  in  leaving  their  children 
in  ignorance  of  the  laws  of  sex  is  notorious. 
Domestic  animals  are  literally  better  bred  than 
human  beings.  The  daughter  will  face  the 
vicissitudes  of  life  more  securely  if  she  has 
been  told  of  the  destiny  that  awaits  her  as  wife 
and  mother,  if  she  has  been  warned  of  the 
snares  with  which  lust  has  beset  the  path  of 
womanhood.    The  son  is  likely  to  live  a  nobler 


The  Unit  of  Society  137 

life  if  lie  has  learned  to  repudiate  the  dual 
standard  of  sexual  morality  which  a  spurious 
philosophy  has  set  up;  if  he  has  been  warned 
that  selfish  excesses  within  or  without  the  mar- 
riage bond  must  be  dearly  paid  for  by  the  com- 
ing generation." 

IV.     THE  SCHOOL  OF  HOME 

We  have  seen  that  the  family  is  the  unit  of 
society  because  of  sex  and  that  the  increasing 
recognition  of  this  is  strikingly  in  keeping  with 
the  thought  of  Jesus.  We  have  seen  further  the 
very  close  connection  between  religion  and  sex. 
We  have  seen,  too,  not  only  the  rich  blessings 
of  sex,  but  its  deep,  dark  evils,  concerning  which 
there  has  been  most  sinful  silence  on  the  part 
of  the  Church,  medicine,  state,  school,  and  home. 
We  began  with  the  home  as  the  holder  of  the 
sociological  key.  We  must  close  with  the 
thought  that  as  such  it  is  a  sacred  school — the 
sacred  school  of  home. 

It  is  taught  by  some  that  at  its  beginning  the 
Christian  family  was  but  the  authorisation  and 
extension  of  the  pair-marriage  custom  of  the 
lower  classes,  who  were  too  poor  to  have  more 
than  one  wife.  Whatever  its  origin,  it  has  been 
and  is  Christianity's  greatest  teaching  oppor- 
tunity.   In  the  words  of  Professor  C.  A.  EH- 


[I38     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

wood :  *  *  The  ettiics  of  Christianity,  indeed,  are 
but  an  idealisation  of  the  family  life.'*  As 
Professor  Seely  has  well  said,  **  Family  affec- 
tion in  some  form  is  the  indispensable  root  of 
Christianity."  Almost  from  infancy  the  train- 
ing for  moral  purity  as  well  as  for  physical 
health  may  begin.  It  is  in  the  home — the  girls 
from  their  mothers  and  the  boys  fr^m  their 
fathers — that  the  children  should  learn  the 
laws  of  their  own  being.  What  an  opportunity 
to  prevent  evil,  the  blighting  of  solitary  vice, 
the  smirch  of  unclean  stories,  and  the  degrading 
idea  of  marriage! 

What  an  opportunity,  too,  for  the  inculcating 
of  the  good  concerning  sex!  While,  through 
sex,  childhood  may  be  perverted  into  dynamite 
destructive  of  the  good,  through  sex,  too,  it 
may  be  converted  into  a  powerful  dynamo  to 
make  for  light  and  progress  in  that  which  is 
best.  It  is  in  the  home  as  nowhere  else  that 
the  cumulative  influence  of  example  may  be 
felt  for  moral  and  spiritual  uplift  through  sex. 
While  parents  may  well  tremble  because  of  the 
responsibility  of  training  the  children  to  avoid 
the  sexual  pitfalls  all  along  the  way,  well  may 
they  tremblingly  rejoice  in  the  possibilities 
given  by  sex  for  the  development  of  that  which 
is  highest : 


The  Unit  of  Society  139 

"For  indeed  I  know 
Of  no  more  subtle  master  under  heaven 
Than  is  the  maiden  passion  for  a  maid. 
Not  only  to  keep  down  the  base  in  man, 
But  teach  high  thought,  and  amiable  words 
And  courtliness,  and  the  desire  of  fame, 
And  lore  of  truth,  and  all  that  makes  a  man." 

What  a  school  is  home  for  inctdcating  the 
right  relationship  between  men  and  women  in 
married  life !  Wrong  relationship  there  means 
a  terrible  accentuating  of  the  lonesomeness  of 
life.  The  heart-pangs  of  many  a  wife  are 
greater  than  those  of  many  a  widow.  Lonelier 
than  the  desert  is  the  homeless  honse.  '  *  There 
is  a  forsaking  which  still  sits  at  the  same  board 
and  lies  on  the  same  couch  with  the  forsaken 
soul,  withering  the  more  by  unloving  proxim- 
ity.'' In  a  single  sentence  George  Eliot  draws 
another  word-picture,  unsurpassed  perhaps,  of 
wedded  isolation:  *^It  was  as  if  they  were 
both  adrift  on  one  piece  of  wreck  and  looked 
away  from  each  other.'' 

On  the  other  hand,  right  relationship  there 
means  a  wonderful  retreat  from  the  lonesome- 
ness of  society.  Concerning  Conan  Doyle 'a 
words  about  the  *^ eternal  duel"  between  man 
and  woman,  Frances  Willard  asked:  ** Didn't 
he  mean  the  eternal  duet?"  Sex  perverted 
means  duels,  with  wounded  hearts,  crippled 


140     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

bodies,  and  dead  souls.  But  sex  appreciated 
and  lived  aright  in  wedded  life  means  duets, 
to  be  envied  by  any  who  neither  marry  nor 
are  given  in  marriage.  It  is  in  the  home  that 
youth  should  be  taught  that  ^^ Marriage,''  to 
use  Felix  Adler's  suggestive  words,  *4s  an 
estate  in  which  we  seek  to  help  each  other  to 
solve  the  total  problem  of  our  lives.  The  at- 
traction of  the  sexes  seen  in  the  light  of  this 
conception  is  glorified  and  transfigured.  Mar- 
riage is  an  estate  in  which  we  charge  ourselves 
not  only  with  the  comfort  and  the  happiness 
of  another,  but  with  the  problems  of  the  total 
spiritual  destiny  of  another.  And  because  our 
life  is  strongest  and  purest  where  our  influence 
is  most  penetrating,  therefore,  in  the  estate  of 
marriage  it  is  possible  for  us  to  attain  a  depth 
of  spiritual  development  such  as  can  be  achieved 
in  no  other  relationship  whatsoever.'' 

Great  souls  though  in  a  little  house !  Living 
the  simple  life,  though  in  a  great  house !  Love's 
inner  vision  of  the  deepest  worth!  The  su- 
preme joys  of  comradeship!  The  sharing  of 
anxieties !  The  binding  together  by  a  common 
grief!  The  mutual  stimulus  to  the  attainment 
of  the  otherwise  impossible!  The  romance  of 
adjusting  to  the  unexpected  difficulties,  aye, 
to  the  unexpected  imperfections  of  one  another ! 
The  words  of  the  clever,  paradoxical  Chester- 


The   Unit  of  Society  141 

ton  are  stimulating  on  this  tlieme.  To  Mm  the 
fact  that  home  is  such  a  restricted  place  in 
which  to  live  is  the  very  fact  that  makes  most 
for  the  romance  of  living.  We  question  if  he 
ever  has  written  anything  better  than  the  fol- 
lowing : 

* '  The  supreme  adventure  is  being  born.  The 
thing  that  keeps  life  romantic  and  full  of  fiery 
possibilities  is  the  existence  of  these  great  plain 
limitations,  which  force  all  of  us  to  meet  things 
we  do  not  like  or  do  not  expect.  Of  all  these 
great  limitations  and  frameworks  which  fash- 
ion and  create  the  poetry  and  variety  of  life, 
the  family  is  the  most  definite  and  important. 
Hence  it  is  misunderstood  by  the  moderns,  who 
imagine  that  romance  would  exist  most  per- 
fectly in  a  complete  state  of  what  they  call 
liberty.  They  say  they  wish  to  be  as  strong 
as  the  universe,  but  they  really  wish  the  whole 
universe  as  weak  as  themselves." 

What  an  opportunity  home  gives  of  training 
in  the  high  calling  of  parentage!  The  call  is 
for  parents,  who,  to  quote  someone's  descrip- 
tion of  the  purpose  of  eugenics,  will  ^*make 
proper  procreation  a  part  of  religion  and 
ethics,  rather  than  a  matter  of  whim  only." 
Parentage  is  so  costly  in  material  things  that 
many  refuse  to  enter  it,  but  it  is  more  costly 


142     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

still  in  that  wliicli  money  cannot  buy.  In  view 
of  the  awful  possibilities  for  good  or  ill  the 
responsibility  of  training  is  such  that  it  means 
the  practical  ** giving  of  one's  life." 

The  cost  should  be  counted,  but  something  of 
the  blessing  should  be  foretold.  Whatever  the 
reason  for  it,  the  unusual  length  of  helplessness 
of  the  human  offspring  certainly  does  make  for 
the  awakening  and  developing  of  those  qualities 
that  lift  a  man  above  the  other  animals.  Home 
is  a  social  school,  not  only  for  the  training  of 
the  children  by  the  parents  but  for  the  training 
of  the  parents  through  the  children.  Father, 
Mother,  Child,  reverently  have  they  been  called 
the  human  trinity.  The  place  on  which  they 
dwell  is  holy  ground ;  their  home,  heaven.  Who 
become  parents  aright  put  on  the  purple.  They 
are  rich  beyond  what  money  may  buy.  While 
poets  well  may  sing  that  woman's  life  is  not 
complete  without  a  babe,  not  alone  for  her  are 
the  royal  riches  of  parentage.  Well  may  everx 
man-child  be  taught  as  a  prince  to  pray : 

"And  so  I  reach, 

Dear  Lord,  to  thee 

And  do  beseech 

Thou  givest  me 
The  wee   cot,    and   the   cricket^s   chirr, 
LoTCj  and  the  glad,  sweet  faM  of  h€tr.'' 


The  Unit  of  Society  143 

''What  is  loveT'  asked  Dr.  J.  H.  Jowett  and 
replied;  *'It  is  absolutely  indefinable.  If  you 
put  your  analytical  finger  on  love,  where  would 
you  begin?  The  biggest  thing  in  love,  I  tell 
you,  is  purity.  There  can  be  no  love  without  it. 
Love  at  the  heart  of  God  is  incorruptible  holi- 
ness. Here  is  the  difference  between  sentiment 
and  sentimentalism.  Sentiment alism  deals  with 
love  that  has  no  holiness  in  it.  Sentiment  is 
pure.  Sentiment  goes  above  the  snow  line. 
Sentimentalism  stays  at  the  base.  Because 
love  is  holy,  love  is  sensitive,  and  because  love 
is  sensitive,  love  is  also  redemptive.  Because 
love  is  holy,  sensitive,  redemptive,  it  is  also  sac- 
rificial. 'He  loved  me  and  gave  himself  for 
me.'  " 

That  is  love.  That,  too,  is  Christlike.  On 
the  wall  of  many  a  home  is  a  legend  represent- 
ing Christ  as  an  ever-present,  all-seeing,  though 
unseen  guest.  We  read  that  Jesus  "was  bid- 
den to  the  marriage.'^  If  Christ  be  present  at 
the  marriage  and  potent  throughout  the  mar- 
ried life,  there,  there,  whether  it  be  a  palace  or 
a  hut,  will  be  earth's  highest  fellowship  in  and 
with  God. 


CHAPTEE  XI 
CHARACTER— HERE  AND  HEREAFTER 

WHAT  is  John  Smith  worth?  Nine  times 
out  of  ten,  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a 
hundred,  the  answer  is  in  terms  of 
money  or  of  that  which  money  can  buy.  But 
a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance 
of  the  things  which  he  possesseth.  A  man  is 
worth  not  what  he  has  but  what  he  is.  Char- 
acter is  what  a  man  is.  Reputation  is  what  a 
man  seems  to  be.  ^'Character,''  said  Moody, 
*4s  what  a  man  is  in  the  dark.''  Character  is 
what  a  man  really  is  worth.  In  every  man 
there  are  elements  of  both  good  and  evil.  The 
greatest  saint  has  some  streak  of  sin,  the  black- 
est sinner  some  gleam  of  good.  The  elements 
of  good  are  the  assets,  the  elements  of  evil  the 
liabilities.  "We  need  to  find  the  elements  of 
evil,  with  their  degrees,  and  the  elements  of 
good,  with  their  degrees,  before  we  can  com- 
pute the  worth  of  John  Smith.  The  answer 
will  be  in  terms  of  character. 

Once  while  I  was  expatiating  to  a  friend  on 
character,  he  ironically  expostulated :    '*Do  you 

144 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      145 

not  know  that  even  to  use  the  word  character  is 
heresy!'*  Many  who  urge  the  laying  of  all 
** deadly  doing  down''  say  that  character  is 
not  emphasised  in  the  Bible,  in  fact,  that  the 
word  itself  is  not  to  be  found  there.  They  do 
err,  not  knowing  the  Scriptures.  The  outstand- 
ing New  Testament  word  for  ^^holy,"  and  its 
kindred  words,  refer  mainly  to  character.  In 
the  words  of  Professor  G.  B.  Stevens:  *^It  is 
characteristically  Godlikeness  .  .  .  the  moral 
purity,  the  God-like  character,  which  the  Gospel 
requires  and  imparts.  ...  II  Cor.  7:1,  *  Per- 
fecting holiness  in  the  fear  of  God,'  that  is, 
perfectly  illustrating  in  character  the  holy  life 
which  comports  with  reverence  for  God." 

Not  only  is  the  idea  of  character  emphasised 
in  Scripture,  but  even  the  word  itself  is  found 
there.  In  the  description  of  the  Son  in  Heb. 
1:3,  the  word  translated  ** express  image" 
transliterated  is  the  word  character.  Dr.  James 
Moffatt's  '^New  Testament"  renders  the  pas- 
sage thus:  ** Reflecting  God's  bright  glory  and 
stamped  with  God's  character."  Christ  the 
character  of  God!  To  be  Christlike  is  to  be 
Godlike,  Jn.  14:9.  Both  words  spell  char- 
acter. Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  the  New 
Testament  ideal  is  Godlike,  Christlike  char- 
acter. Matt.  5:48;  Phil.  2:5;  etc.  This  it  is 
that  has  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is 


146     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

and  that  which  is  to  come — the  here  and  here- 
after. 

I.     HERE 

To  be  without  character — ^nsing  the  term  in 
its  highest  meaning — is  to  fail  of  the  highest. 
Dr.  Hamilton  Mabie  gave  a  vivid  and  striking 
illustration  of  this  from  the  experience  of  the 
masterful  Mirabeau.  **In  bitterness  of  soul 
he  learned  that  genius  and  character  are  bound 
together  by  indissoluble  ties,  and  that  genius 
without  character  is  like  oil  that  blazes  up  and 
dies  down  about  a  shattered  lamp.  More  than 
once,  in  words  full  of  the  deepest  pathos,  he 
recognised  the  immense  value  of  character  in 
men  of  far  less  ability  than  himself.''  Many 
are  those  who  are  otherwise  promising  who 
will  never,  as  a  modem  writer  puts  it,  *^  strike 
anything  out  of  nature  that  is  worth  having 
wrestled  with  her  to  any  purpose.  Why?  Be- 
cause they  have  every  sort  of  capacity,  every 
sort  of  cleverness,  and  no  character!^' 

The  same  thought  is  brought  out  unforget- 
ably  in  Browning's  dramatic  monologue,  ** An- 
drea del  Sarto. ' '  His  was  the  skill  but  not  the 
character.  It  was  beyond  him,  therefore,  to 
produce  a  masterpiece  like  Rafael's,  in  whose 
drawing  he  could  detect  the  flaws.    Of  these, 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      i/\r/ 

and  more,  lie  speaks  to  his  wife  in  a  way  that 
haunts : 

"That  arm  is  wrongly  put — and  there  again — 
A  fault  to  pardon  in  the  drawing's  lines, 
Its  body,  so  to  speak:  its  soul  is  right, 
He  means  right — that,  a  child  may  understand. 
Still,  what  an  arm !  and  I  could  alter  it : 
But  all  the  play,  the  insight  and  the  stretch — 
Out  of  me,  out  of  me!    And  wherefore  out! 
Had  you  enjoined  them  on  me,  given  me  soul, 
We  might  have  risen  to  Rafael,  I  and  you!" 

Without  a  Christlike  character,  no  matter 
how  well  one  is  environed  the  testing  time  will 
come,  and  with  it  failure.  In  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter  of  Second  Chronicles  is  an  interest- 
ingly sad  story  illustrating  this ;  King  **  Joash 
did  that  which  was  right  in  the  eyes  of  Jehovah 
all  the  days  of  Jehoiada  the  priest.'*  But 
**  after  the  death  of  Jehoiada  came  the  princes 
of  Judah  and  made  obeisance  to  the  king.  Then 
the  king  hearkened  unto  them.  And  they  for- 
sook the  house  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their 
fathers''  with  the  result  that  Joash  was  con- 
quered, diseased,  and  murdered.  He  had  no 
character  to  stand  the  testing.  His  was  a 
propped-up  goodness. 

The  sombre  rides  along  a  lonely  necropolis- 
way  are  associated  with  a  leaning,  pole-propped 
granary  in  the  wayside  meadow.     One  bleak 


148      Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

day  the  pole  fell  and  with  it  the  building.  He 
loved  his  frail,  beautiful-souled  wife  and  by  the 
supporting  spell  of  her  sweet  presence  was 
kept  from  falling  into  his  besetting  sin.  The 
strain,  however,  was  too  great  for  her.  She 
fell  in  death  and  he  into  sin.  The  supreme  test 
came  and  because  he  had  *^no  character '^  the 
passers-by  beheld,  where  once  he  stood,  a  ruin. 

How  often  parents  would  fight  the  battles  of 
their  children  entering  the  arena  of  youth. 
Before  that,  however,  by  inheritance  and  train- 
ing they  have  contributed  to  their  children's 
character  that  which  mainly  determines  victory 
or  defeat. 

Character  may  be  unavoidably  environed  by 
vice  and  yet  successfully  resist  its  persistent 
siege.  Consider  the  water  lily,  how  it  grows — 
rooted  in  the  mire  and  upon  the  turbid  waters, 
yet  it  retains  its  fragrant  purity.  From  out 
the  mire  of  politics  and  amid  the  defilements 
of  business  the  man  of  character  wears  the 
** white  flower  of  a  blameless  life."  Aye,  he 
may  be  more  than  blameless.  He  may  achieve. 
Like  Sir  Galahad  his  strength  may  be  as  the 
strength  of  ten  because  his  heart  is  pure.  How 
with  an  unbroken  sword  the  craven  failed  be- 
cause his  character  was  that  of  a  craven,  while 
with  the  broken  sword  of  the  craven  the  king's 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      149 

son  won  the  day  because  he  had  a  royal  char- 
acter, Sill  sang  in  lines  that  will  stand  fre- 
quent repetition  these  brave  days : 

"A  craven  hung  along  the  battle's  edge, 
And  thought,  'Had  I  a  sword  of  keener  steel. 
That  blue  blade  that  the  king's  son  bears, — but  this 
Blunt  thing!'   he  snapped  and   flung  it  from  his  hand, 
And  lowering  crept  away  and  left  the  field. 
Then  came  the  king's  son,  wounded,  sore  bestead, 
And   weaponless,   and   saw   the   broken   sword. 
Hilt-buried  in  the  dry  and  trodden  sand, 
And  ran  and  snatched  it,  and  with  battle-shout 
Lifted  afresh  he  hewed  his  enemy  down 
And  saved   a  great  cause  that  heroic   day." 

Whether  in  the  supreme  tests  or  in  the  ordi- 
nary ^'process  of  the  suns,''  kingly  deeds  grow 
out  of  the  royal  soul.  Character  achieves. 
Christlike  character  achieves  Christlike  values 
here. 

II.     HEREAFTER 

How  about  the  hereafter?    If  convinced  that 
it  were  true  that 

"We  live,  no  more,  when  we  have  done  our  span," 
the  thought  of  some  would  be : 

"Live  we  like  brutes  our  life  without  a  plan." 


150     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

But  those  with  a  Christlike  character  would 
cry: 

"Hath  man  no  second  life?    Pitch  this  one  high." 

Such  only  are  ready  to  make  the  most  of  what- 
ever may  await  across  the  river.  As  Professor 
H.  Hoif ding  puts  it :  '^  Only  he  who  has  hon- 
estly and  honourably  laboured  for  the  values 
which  can  be  found  and  produced  in  this  world 
is  prepared  for  a  future  world — if  there  be  a 
future  world,  a  question  which  experience  alone 
can  decide.'' 

Is  there  a  hereafter  for  the  individual!  Does 
human  personality  persist  after  death?  The 
pantheistic  trend  of  religious  thought  does  not 
give  assurance  of  individual  immortality.  The 
attitude  of  science  commonly  has  been  agnostic 
and  negatively  dogmatic.  We  sympathise  with 
the  agnostics  who,  like  Goldwin  Smith,  are 
sceptical  of  any  future  life,  but  who  would  join 
with  him  in  saying:  ^^All  this  is  said  on  the 
hypothesis  that  scientific  scepticism  succeeds 
in  demolishing  the  hope  of  a  future  life.  After 
all,  great  is  our  ignorance,  and  there  may  be 
something  yet  behind  the  veil.''  On  the  other 
hand  we  cannot  sympathise  with  the  negative 
dogmatism  of  science.  Surely  it  is  no  more  to 
be  commended  than  the  positive  dogmatism  of 
theology.    That  men  foremost  in  different  de- 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      151 

partments  of  the  modern  sciences  themselves 
have  entertained  hopes  of  a  life  hereafter,  sug- 
gests, at  least,  that  scientific  scepticism  has 
not  demolished  the  hope  of  a  future  lifC; 

What  is  the  hasis  of  this  scepticism?  It  is 
based,  to  a  large  extent,  on  the  assumption  that 
brain  produces  thought,  which,  therefore,  ceases 
when  the  body  dies.  But,  as  Professor  James 
emphasised,  this  is  a  mere  assumption  and  as 
the  prism  transmits  light  the  brain  may  trans- 
mit thought,  which,  after  all,  therefore,  would 
not  be  dependent  upon  the  brain.  As  another 
has  strikingly  put  it:  **If  a  man  is  shut  up  in 
a  house,  the  transparency  of  the  windows  is 
an  essential  condition  of  his  seeing  the  sky. 
But  it  would  not  be  prudent  to  infer  that,  if 
he  walked  out  of  the  house,  he  could  not  see 
the  sky,  because  there  were  no  longer  any 
glass  through  which  he  might  see." 

Another  argument  against  immortality, 
namely,  that  man  is  not  worth  it,  suggests  per- 
haps the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  it,  i.  e., 
the  **  worth whileness"  of  human  life.  In  his 
chapter  on  ^*The  Ageless  Life''  **Ian  Mac- 
Laren"  wrote:  **How  can  one  be  certain  that 
Jesus  is  with  God?  It  is  a  question  of  the 
last  importance.  There  are  four  lines  of  proof. 
The  first  is  to  read  reliable  evidence  that  Jesus 
rose  from  Joseph's  tomb — that  is  for  the  law- 


1^2     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

yer.  The  second  is  historical — the  existence 
of  the  Christian  Church — that  is  for  a  scholar. 
The  third  is  mystical — the  experience  of  Chris- 
tians— that  is  for  a  saint.  The  fourth  is  ethi- 
cal— the  nature  of  Jesus '  life — that  is  for  every- 
one. The  last  is  the  most  akin  to  the  mind  of 
Jesus,  who  was  accustomed  to  insist  on  the  self- 
evidencing  power  of  his  life.  He  is  alive  be- 
cause he  could  not  die.'* 

Expressed  in  the  terminology  of  a  still  more 
modem  thinker,  the  argument  for  the  immor- 
tality of  Jesus  would  be  that  his  life-work  was 
superior  to  time.  Because  in  himself  was  a 
core  of  spiritual  life,  he  was  a  co-labourer  in  a 
spiritual  order  that  must  be  superior  to  time. 
He  knew  that  he  belonged  to  this  eternal  spirit- 
ual life  and  that  with  it  he  was  immortal 
Others  may  have  this  same  spiritual  life  and 
the  more  who  thus  are  Christlike  the  more 
deeply  will  the  conviction  of  immortality  take 
hold  upon  humanity.  The  reading  of  the  life 
of  Phillips  Brooks  resulted  in  the  lines : 

"Here  was  a  man  cast  in  such  generous  mould 

Of  body,  brain  and  conscience,  heart  and  soul, 
That  if  till  now  we  never  bad  been  told 

Of  an   eternal  life   and   perfect  goal 
Beyond  the  verge  of  this  our  mortal  space, 

Straightway  of  such  we  should  conceive,  and  dare 
Believe  it  builded  in  God's  boundless  grace 

After  this  man's  great  fashion,  high  and  fair." 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      153 

This  conviction  of  the  worthfulness  of  hu- 
man life  is  the  basis  of  the  *^ venture  of  faith'' 
that  lays  hold  on  immortality.  This  is  the  con- 
clusion to  which  Professor  W.  A.  Brown  came 
in  his  book  on  this  *' Christian  Hope.''  He 
writes:  *^We  have  considered  the  different 
arguments  for  the  Christian  hope:  historical, 
philosophical,  ethical,  and  religious,  and  have 
found  that  they  all  reduce  to  a  form  of  the 
argument  from  value.  It  is  because  immor- 
tality seems  supremely  worthful  that  we  desire 
it,  and  because  we  expect  the  universe  to  an- 
swer our  highest  desires  that  we  believe  in  it. 
In  this  respect  our  faith  in  immortality  rests 
on  the  same  basis  as  all  our  other  ultimate  con- 
victions. All  that  makes  life  beautiful  and  so- 
ciety noble  and  character  secure,  we  hold  in  the 
last  analysis  by  the  venture  of  faith." 

Significant  here  is  the  suggestion  of  a  lad's 
answer  to  a  traveller  in  Switzerland.  Asked 
where  Kandersteg  was,  he  replied:  **I  do  not 
know,  sir,  where  Kandersteg  is,  but  there  is 
the  road  to  it."  With  all  our  ignorance  con- 
cemiQg  the  nature  of  heaven  hereafter,  faith 
ventures  to  assert  that  character  is  the  sure 
road  thereto.  Death  is  but  the  breaking  of  the 
cage  and  man  sinks  or  soars,  according  as  he 
has  grovelled  in  the  cage's  dust  or  learned  to 
sing  the  songs  of  paradise.    To  the  aged  Anas- 


154     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

tasius,  raised  to  the  throne  from  humble  but 
faithful  service,  came  the  people's  acclaim: 
** Reign  as  you  have  lived."  Life  hereafter  is 
to  be  the  continuation,  and  so  the  result  of  life 
here.  Some  believe  there  is  no  chance  for  re- 
pentance and  improvement  hereafter.  Others 
believe  that  there  will  be  changes  after  death 
as  well  as  before.  Some  have  come  to  their 
position  through  *'the  venture  of  faith'';  others 
mainlj  through  what  they  believe  the  Scrip- 
tures teach ;  and  still  others  through  what  they 
believe  spiritualism  has  already  proved.  But 
whatever  the  view  of  the  mode  of  continuance 
after  death,  and  whatever  the  reason  given  in 
its  support,  the  modern  scientists  and  philoso- 
phers who  believe  in  immortality,  and  increas- 
ingly thoughtful  Christians  generally,  hold  the 
deep  conviction  that  death  is  but  an  incident 
in  life  and  that  character  here  will  determine 
condition  hereafter. 

That  is  why  one  of  the  most  suggestive  texts 
in  the  New  Testament  is  John  6 :54.  * '  He  that 
eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath 
eternal  life."  Inferences  from  the  oft-used 
figures  of  cleansing  and  covering  by  the  blood 
should  be  tested  by  the  truth  in  this  startling 
figure  of  drinking  the  blood.  Salvation  is  not 
mechanical.  It  is  vital.  Saving  faith  does 
more  than  assert.    It  appropriates.    Sometimes 


Character — Here  and  Hereafter      155 

we  hear  such  a  testimony  as  this:  *^I  am  cov- 
ered with  the  blood.  God  does  not  see  me.  He 
sees  the  blood.  My  standing  therefore  is  all 
right  in  heaven,  no  matter  what  my  state  is 
here  on  earth.''  Though  not  so  crudely  put, 
this  is  the  same  thought  as  that  in  a  Southern 
quatrain  that  Dr.  A.  H.  Strong  gave  years  ago 
in  one  of  his  suggestive  talks.  The  theme  was 
antinomianism  and  the  ludicrously  **  horrible 
example"  he  cited  was — as  nearly  as  memory 
serves — these  negro  lines : 

"You  may  rip,  you  may  tear, 
You  may  cuss,  you  may  swear: 
But  you^re  just  as  sure  of  heaven 
As    if  you'd  done  gone  there." 

The  danger  of  this  view  is  not  when  it  is 
expressed  thus.  Most  to  be  guarded  against 
is  its  subtle  presence  in  such  a  vague  way  that 
it  does  not  find  clear  expression  in  words,  but, 
nevertheless,  works  disastrously  in  preventing 
Christlike  character.  Surely  in  vain  was  the 
cross  of  Calvary  stained  with  the  life-blood  of 
Jesus,  if  through  his  death  men  in  the  pres- 
ence of  temptation  are  weakened  by  an  unrecog- 
nised, unsuspected  antinomian  heresy.  The 
cross  is  not  an  iron  anchor  with  which  to  grip 
the  lazy  shore  of  false  security.  It  is  the  mast 
on  which  to  spread  the  sail  that  makes  for  joy- 


156     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

ons  progress  to  the  haven  of  a  heavenly  bliss 
through  Christlike  character.  Those  who  look 
upon  it  as  a  fire-escape  from  hell,  rather  than 
a  means  of  rising  above  the  selfishness  of  sin, 
have  missed  its  mighty  meaning. 


CHAPTER  Xn 
JOY 

I.     THE  PURSUIT  OF  PLEASURE 

JOY  has  been  defined  comparatively  as 
**more  intense  than  happiness,  deeper 
than  gladness,  to  which  it  is  akin,  nobler 
and  more  enduring  than  pleasure.'*  Neverthe- 
less, through  the  ages,  pleasure,  rather  than 
joy,  has  been  the  common  quest.  While  mil- 
lions were  dying  in  fighting  for  a  world-peace, 
pleasure  was  still  a  common  pursuit.  In  it  sol- 
dier and  sailor  themselves  shared,  especially 
when  on  their  own.  Speaking  generally,  it  is 
not  only  common  but  costly.  When  the  quest 
is  sexually  immoral,  it  is  terribly  costly,  as  has 
been  seen;  so  also  when  the  way  is  that  of  in- 
toxicating drink.  Though  an  effort  to  break 
away  temporarily  from  the  barriers  of  human 
limitation — a  blundering  quest  to  get  beyond 
the  finite — the  ways  of  lust  and  drink  exact  ter- 
rible toll. 

In  other  ways  of  questing  pleasure,  though 
often  not  morally  wrong,  the  fare  commonly  has 

157 


158     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

been  high.  Winter's  parties,  balls,  plays,  and 
carnivals;  summer's  outings,  its  seasides  and 
mountain  heights,  its  conventions  and  its  trav- 
els ;  and  the  corresponding  seasonable  activities 
of  the  autumn  and  the  spring  make  up  the  enor- 
mous total  of  the  yearly  expenditure  in  the  pur- 
suit of  pleasure.  The  young  can  hardly  enjoy 
the  game  they  have  in  their  haste  to  try  an- 
other. The  old  covet  as  misers  the  things  that 
give  the  slightest  thrills  of  pleasure  to  their 
lonely  hearts.  The  boy,  in  playing  marbles, 
and  his  father,  in  making  money,  have  a  com- 
mon quest — pleasure.  Some  pursue  their  quest 
in  literature  and  others  hold  communion  with 
nature's  visible  forms,  that  in  her  varied  lan- 
guage she  may  speak  some  words  to  pleasure 
them.  Locating  her  differently,  and  so  taking 
different  roads  in  the  pursuit,  old  and  young, 
male  and  female  have  been  impelled  on  and  on 
in  the  same  costly  quest  for  pleasure. 

For  the  most  part  it  is  a  pathetic  search. 
As  has  been  throughout  the  ages,  so  the  world 
today  is  filled  with  disappointed  seekers.  One 
reason  for  this  is  that  often  the  pleasure  pur- 
sued is  never  overtaken.  As  children  we  read 
of  the  pot  of  gold  at  the  foot  of  the  rainbow  and 
of  him  who  quested  it.  It  seemed  so  near  at 
times  that  hope  beat  high,  but  as  he  neared  what 
seemed  the  point  of  contact  with  the  earth,  the 


M 152 

rainbow's  foot,  and  so  the  pot  of  gold,  were  no 
nearer  than  before.  Luring  him  on  and  on  till 
the  seeker  becomes  like  the  Wandering  Jew,  the 
object  he  seeks  for  pleasure  is  ever  just  beyond 
his  grasp.  Pathetic  the  failures  of  the  ambi- 
tious to  reach  the  pleasure-goal  they  sought. 
Many  in  the  race  for  gold  have  died  of  hunger 
and  cold.  Many,  who  kept  in  view  the  temple 
of  fame  as  the  end  of  their  pilgrimage  and  the 
place  of  their  habitation,  have  dropped  out  on 
the  way  in  the  darkness  of  obscurity.  The  cry 
of  many  hearts  today  is  more  than  the  echo  of 
the  cry  of  old:  ** Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  van- 
ity.'^    For 

"Pleasures,  like  the  circle  bounding  earth  and  sky, 
Entice  us  from  afar,  but  as  we  follow  fly.'' 

Another  reason  for  disappointment  is  that 
even  if  the  objects  sought  for  be  obtained  they 
often  do  not  yield  what  was  expected  from 
them ;  and  what  they  yield  is  not  for  long,  bom 
but  to  live  a  day.  Many  who  have  reached  what 
was  to  them  the  golden  goal  of  their  ambition 
have  found  that  all  that  glisters  is  not  gold. 
They  had  mistaken  the  glister  of  passing  pleas- 
ure for  the  pure  gold  of  joy.  Theirs  is  not  even 
the  sterling  silver  of  serene  happiness.  The 
poor  are  inclined  to  look  upon  the  wealthy  as 
upon  the  bell  in  the  belfry  serenely  filling  a 


i6o     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

place  high  and  lifted  up.  A  newspaperman 
once  pulled  the  rope  and  this  was  what  rang 
out  from  the  New  York  World  to  all  the  world : 
**  Wealth  does  not  bring  happiness  for  many  rea- 
sons ' ' — John  D.  Eockef eller ;  * '  Men  are  no  hap- 
pier when  rich  than  when  poor'' — Russell  A. 
Alger;  **With  all  the  advantages  and  privileges 
w^hich  wealth  confers  I  do  not  believe  that  it 
brings  happiness" — George  M.  Pullman;  *^Few 
people  have  any  idea  of  the  many  inconveni- 
ences which  wealth  brings.  Those  who  have 
will  never  ask  such  a  foolish  question  as,  Does 
wealth  bring  happiness?'' — Russell  Sage. 

Commonly  the  more  prosperity,  the  more  dis- 
satisfaction there  is.  Often  the  millionaire  is 
the  man  who  most  needs  help.  He  may  have 
the  power  of  money  without  having  the  secret 
of  joy.  Joy  cannot  be  bought.  The  wealth  of 
Croesus  would  not  tempt  her  to  sojourn  in  a 
heart  not  suited  to  her  taste,  but  she  comes  and 
takes  up  her  abode  in  the  lowliest  heart  that  is 
well  pleasing  in  her  sight.  She  cannot  be  caught 
— by  speed  or  guile.  The  swiftest  falcon  can- 
not follow  her,  but  she  loves  to  fill  with  sweet- 
est music  the  soul  prepared  for  celestial  song. 
Such  souls  are  magnets  that  her  heart  cannot 
resist : 

"If  solid  happiness  we  prize, 
Within  our  breast  the  jewel  lies, 


Joy  l6l 

And  they  are  fools  who  roam. 

The  world  has  nothing  to  bestow; 
From  our  own  selves  our  joys  must  flow 

And  that  dear  hut,  our  home." 

So  many  have  reached  material  goals  to  be 
as  **a  thirsty  man  dreameth,  and,  behold,  he 
drinketh;  but  he  awaketh,  and,  behold,  he  is 
faint,  and  his  sonl  hath  appetite.'*  Blindly 
blundering  in  their  search  to  satisfy  their  deep- 
est yearning  they  have  gone  without,  for  pleas- 
ure, rather  than  prepared  themselves  within  to 
receive  the  living  waters  of  joy.  A  Minnesota 
family,  on  their  ^^ Bunker  Hill"  in  a  time  of 
drought,  had  a  well  but  no  water.  Having 
hauled  more  water  than  was  needed  for  their  im- 
mediate use,  they  put  the  surplus  into  the  well. 
When  they  sought  it,  it  was  gone.  When  by 
chance  one  of  the  household  was  asked  if  the 
wells  on  the  hill  were  dry  there  came  the  ready 
answer:  ^*Yes,  and  there  are  cracks  in  the  bot- 
tom." The  human  heart  of  many  a  one  most 
prosperous  today  is  empty  of  joy  because,  like 
the  well  on  the  hill,  it  is  unprepared  to  receive 
it — *^a  cistern,  a  broken  cistern,"  that  can  hold 
no  joy.  The  difference  between  a  broken  cistern 
and  a  flowing  spring!  Strikingly  suggestive 
here,  from  the  story  of  that  dialogue  at  Jacob's 
well,  are  the  words:  ** Jesus  answered  and  said 


1 62     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

unto  her,  Every  one  that  drinketh  of  this  water 
shall  thirst  again:  but  whosoever  drinketh  of 
the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  become  in 
him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  unto  eternal 
life/' 


II.     THE  NORMALITY  OF  CHRISTIAN  JOY 

In  their  final  battle  for  the  cup  we  were  cheer- 
ing on  ^^our  boys/'  and,  it  seems,  were  over- 
heard. Two  Christian  men,  belonging  to  a 
small  sect  of  superlatively  pious  folk,  abruptly 
accosted  us  with  the  question:  *^ Would  Jesus 
or  Paul  play  football  and  Martha  and  Mary 
cheer  them  on  ? "  Not  to  shock  them  over  much, 
we  simply  said  we  should  like  a  game  with  Paul. 
If  the  traditional  picture  of  him  be  correct,  his 
would  be  an  interesting  figure  upon  the  field. 
More  interesting,  however,  are  his  figures  of 
speech  drawn  from  the  Grecian  games  to  illus- 
trate his  thought — the  strenuousness  of  the 
Christian  life.  We  follow  his  example  and  our 
thought  is  that  a  Christlike  sense  of  God,  while 
compatible  with  pleasure,  implies  joy. 

We  commonly  apply  to  Jesus  the  description 
of  ^'the  suffering  servant"  of  Isaiah  and  call 
him  **a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
grief,"  yet  I  believe  that  it  would  be  more  truly 
descriptive  of  his  whole  religious  life  to  call  him 


Joy^ 163 

a  man  of  joys  and  acquainted  with  bliss.  We 
read  that  he  wept,  it  is  true,  and  not  that  he 
laughed  or  smiled.  In  an  apocryphal  letter, 
written  as  if  contemporary  with  Jesus,  it  is 
asserted  that  no  one  ever  saw  him  laughing, 
but,  rather,  weeping.  But  assuredly  he  could 
not  have  gone  throughout  his  life,  or  even  his 
public  ministry,  without  laughter.  Surely  the 
sunshine  of  his  smile  was  more  common  than  the 
rain  of  his  tears.  One  may  grant  that  his  life 
was  not  pre-eminently  one  of  pleasure.  Assur- 
edly, however,  it  was  one  of  joy. 

His  was  the  joy  of  victory  over  temptation; 
of  helping  others  in  their  needs — the  joy  of 
one  who  had  ^^  learned  the  luxury  of  doing 
good.'*  It  is  true  that  he  had  enemies,  bitter 
and  powerful;  and  that  they  hounded  him  to 
death.  It  is  also  true,  however,  that  he  had 
many  friends.  He  had  no  wife  and  children  of 
his  own,  but  his  attitude  to  women  made  them 
his  devoted  friends  and  his  love  for  children 
undoubtedly  was  reciprocated  by  them.  Though 
his  disciples  did  not  fully  understand  him,  and 
so  the  joy  of  fellowship  was  not  full,  yet  he  did 
have  joyous  fellowship  with  them.  Above  all, 
he  had  a  joyous  sense  of  fellowship  with  God. 
Overwhelming  all  the  grief  of  human  enmity, 
transcending  all  the  joys  of  human  fellowship, 
was  this  joyous  sense  of  fellowship  with  the 


164     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

Father.  Overshadowing  Gethsemane  and  Cal- 
vary, out-topping  even  Bethany,  were  his  moun- 
tain peaks  of  prayer.  We  read  that  as  he 
prayed  he  was  transfigured — the  outshining  of 
the  inmost  joy  of  fellowship  divine.  In  his 
praying  he  co-operated  with  the  Father,  and  by 
his  praying  was  strengthened  to  further  co-op- 
eration that  made  for  further  joy. 

Say  we  not  truly  that  his  must  have  been  a 
life  of  joyf  And  though  the  clouds  gathered 
at  the  last,  and  he  perished  in  the  storm,  yet, 
beyond  the  incident  of  his  death,  he  saw  the 
warm  welcome  to  his  Father's  home  and  heart. 
In  Hebrews  we  read  that  he  endured  the  cross 
and  despised  the  shame  in  view  of  the  joy  that 
was  set  before  him.  To  the  joys  of  realisation 
were  added  the  joys  of  anticipation.  Unques- 
tionably his  was  a  life  of  joy. 

The  normal  Christian  life  should  be,  there- 
fore, more  than  a  pleasure-seeking  one,  more 
even  than  a  happy  one.  It  should  be  a  life  of 
joy.  *  *  The  first  sermon  I  ever  preached  in  Eng- 
land,'' wrote  the  author  of  *^ The  Life  of  Trust," 
**was  on  January  first,  1830,  and  was  on  this 
subject:  *The  difference  between  a  Christian 
and  a  rejoicing  Christian.'  The  old  pastor  re- 
marked, *Wait  until  we  see  that  young  man 
twenty  years  hence,  and  we  will  see  how  much 
of  a  rejoicing  Christian  he  is.'    Twice  twenty 


Joy  165 

years  have  passed  and  still  do  I  rejoice,  and 
more  than  ever."  While  his  experience  is  in- 
spiring, his  sermon  subject,  as  he  stated  it,  is 
not.  It  suggests,  rather,  that  the  usual  Chris- 
tian life  is  not  joyous ;  while  the  truth  is  that  his 
own  experience  ought  to  be  the  normal  one. 
Christianity  is  not  a  thing  of  black  and  grey. 
It  revels  in  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow.  Its 
characteristic  music  is  not  the  Miserere  but 
the  Te  Deum.  In  fact,  it  gives  garlands  for 
ashes,  the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning  and  the  gar- 
ment of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness.  The 
Bible  is  a  book  of  joy.  Very  few  of  the  psalms 
end  in  lugubrious  notes.  The  gospels,  as  their 
very  name  suggests,  give  glad  tidings.  They 
abound  in  beatitudes.  According  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  Jesus,  in  teaching  his  disciples,  said: 
*^  These  things  have  I  spoken  unto  you  that 
my  joy  may  be  in  you,  and  that  your  joy  may 
be  made  full."  The  epistles  are  bright  with 
hope  and  radiant  with  joy.  In  its  fundamental 
literature  and  in  its  deepest  life  Christianity  is 
a  religion  of  joy. 

Honest  higher  criticism  is  good,  but  if  the 
spirit  that  it  engenders  is  not  one  of  joy,  then 
it  must  give  way  to  the  highest  criticism — that 
is,  the  highest  appreciation — of  the  Bible  as  a 
book  that  giveth  joy.  We  admire  the  Puritans, 
but  the  gloominess  of  Puritanism  must  give 


i66     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

way  to  the  gleam  and  tlie  glory  of  a  Christlike 
joy.  Calvin's  was  a  great  mind,  but  the  dark- 
ness of  the  theological  austerity  of  Calvinism 
must  be  penetrated  by  the  joyous  light  of  the 
Light  of  the  World.    Watts  sang : 

"Religion  never  was  designed 
To  make  our  pleasures  less," 

in  a  hymn  that  has  this  hortatory  close : 

'  "Then  let  our  songs  abound; 
And  every  tear  be  dry. 
We're  marching  through  ImmanuePs  ground 
To  fairer  worlds  on  high." 


III.      SPECIAL  CAUSES  FOR  JOY 

In  this  march  special  causes,  and  so  special 
seasons,  of  rejoicing  may  be  expected;  but 
throughout  it  all  there  may  be  a  deep,  deep  un- 
dertone of  joy. 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  sang: 

"There  have  been  moments  blest 
When  I  have  heard  thy  voice  and  felt  thy  power; 
Then  evil  lost  its  grasp,  and  passion,  hushed. 
Owned  the  divine  enchantment  of  the  hour." 

Kemembering  such  victories  and  assured  /of 
others,  modems,  concerning  their  temptations 


Joy  167 

personified,  may  use  the  psalmist^s  words: 
*^And  now  shall  my  head  be  lifted  np  above 
mine  enemies  round  about  me,  And  I  will  offer 
in  his  tabernacle  sacrifices  of  joy."  In  the  Old 
Testament  story  we  read  of  Samson,  under  the 
power  of  the  spirit,  slaying  a  lion;  and,  later, 
getting  honey  from  the  carcass  thereof.  In  the 
New  Testament  story  of  a  duel  in  the  wilder- 
ness we  read,  when  the  victory  over  temptatioil 
was  won  through  the  sword  of  the  Spirit:  *^then 
the  devil  leaveth  him" ;  but  not  that  only:  **and 
behold,  angels  came  and  ministered  unto  him." 
The  fiercest  bestial  temptations  when  overcome 
yield  the  sweets  of  victory,  and  the  most  subtle 
bring  the  highest  ministries  of  strengthening 
joy.  At  the  siege  of  Sebastopol  a  shot  from  the 
foe  tore  into  the  hillside,  opening  up  thereby  a 
spring  of  water  to  refresh  those  it  was  intended 
to  destroy.  In  the  fierce  fight  with  that  which 
besieges  Mansoul  there  is  often  opened  up  a 
living  spring  of  joy.  It  may  mean  the  discov- 
ery of  a  dark  passage  into  a  magic  cave  of 
light  and  joy.  Times  of  trial  may  be  but  John 
the  Baptists  to  times  of  rejoicing. 

So  with  times  of  opportunity  to  serve.  **It  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive"  is  a  large 
part  of  the  Christian  secret  of  a  joyous  life. 
This  great  principle  reported,  thus,  in  Acts,  as 
the  words  of  Jesus,  was  certainly  part  of  the 


i68     Christianity's   IJjiifying  Fundamental 

explanation  of  the  joy  of  Jesns'  life.  Because 
lie  lived  according  to  this  secret  he  walked  the 
golden  streets  here.  Because  his  disciples 
learned  it  from  him,  in  the  midst  of  persecu- 
tion for  serving  others,  they  had  songs  in  the 
night,  ^'rejoicing  that  they  were  counted  worthy 
to  suffer  dishonour  for  the  Name  "  He  finds  joy 
who  makes  others  joyous;  for  it  is  a  perfume 
one  cannot  pour  out  on  another  without  getting 
some  of  it  himself.  It  is  Christlike  to  seek  the 
weal  of  others  rather  than  joy  for  self.  Joy 
is  hidden  from  those  who  selfishly  seek  her, 
but  is  found  of  those  who,  in  their  unselfish- 
ness, seek  her  not.  This  gives  special  meaning 
to  the  pregnant  words:  *^Not  by  appointment 
do  we  meet  delight  or  joy:  they  heed  not  our 
expectancy  but  around  some  comer  of  the  street 
of  life  they  on  a  sudden  greet  us  with  a  smile.'' 
Who  has  not  cudgelled  his  brains  to  call  up 
something  that  he  knew  and  knew  that  he  knew, 
but  failed  to  recall,  until  he  became  engrossed 
in  something  else ;  when  the  thing  desired  came 
to  mind?  He  whose  sole  aim  is  to  bring  joy 
into  consciousness  will  fail.  If,  however,  like 
Christ  he  becomes  engrossed  in  work  for  others' 
good,  joy  will  come  to  thrill  and  fill  the  heart; 
and  the  more  the  heart  is  emptied  thus  of  self, 
the  more  eagerly  will  joy  rush  in  to  fill  the  void. 
There  is  that  scattereth  blessings  among  others 


Joy  169 

yet  increaseth  joy  in  self.  Said  one :  *'I  can  tell 
your  best  workers  by  the  shine  on  their  faces.'' 
Asked  how  others  might  have  the  good  cheer 
she  so  constantly  possessed,  Alice  Freeman 
Palmer  replied  to  this  effect :  Every  day  commit 
to  memory  something  good,  look  for  something 
pretty  and  do  something  for  somebody.  The 
secret  of  perennial  joy  is  the  abiding  spirit  of 
him  who  went  about  doing  good — ^not  to  be  min- 
istered unto  but  to  minister. 

Wliat  a  joy  was  ours  who  co-operated  with  his 
father  in  the  finding  of  little  Earl  Hines  who 
was  lost  in  the  woods.  After  the  successful 
search,  to  entrain  for  home  the  crowd  was 
massed  at  the  little  siding.  Suddenly  the  air 
became  electric.  The  crowd  instinctively  gave 
way.  There  was  a  strange  hush  upon  it. 
Through  the  advancing  angle  of  the  parting 
mass  walked  the  father  with  his  son  upon  his 
breast.  Not  a  cheer  rose  but  many  a  tear  fell 
and  from  the  eyes  of  stalwart  men.  No  one 
spoke  to  him,  nor  he  to  any;  but  his  very  si- 
lence seemed  to  say:  *^This  my  son  was  dead, 
and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost,  and  is  found." 
As  sharers  of  his  search  we  were  sharers,  too, 
in  his  unutterable  joy.  The  joy  of  Jesus  was 
the  joy  of  sharing  with  the  Father  in  bringing 
back  to  him  his  wandering  children  with  the 
lonely  hearts. 


170     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

The  supreme  joy  of  Christlikeness  is  in  co- 
operating with  God  for  the  weal  of  the  world. 
It  is  not  simply  praying:  *^God  save  the  peo- 
ple"— **not  kings  and  lords  but  nations,  not 
thrones  and  crowns  but  men."  It  is  co-operat- 
ing with  him  in  the  fight  for  democracy  as 
against  autocracy.  Says  one:  ^^It  is  the  possi- 
bility of  sharing  directly  in  this  inward  life  of 
the  universe,  and  furthering  it  by  our  labours, 
that  gives  stability,  spontaneity,  and  greatness 
to  life,  inspiring  it  with  an  inner  joyousness." 
What  is  this  **  sharing  directly  in  this  inward 
life  of  the  universe ' '  but,  stated  in  other  terms : 
*'we  are  God's  fellow-workers"?  It  was  this 
that  gave  to  Paul,  as  to  Jesus,  **an  inner  joy- 
ousness."  Even  though,  according  to  Bergson, 
we  be  but  part  of  the  cosmic  experimenting, 
does  it  not  add  zest  to  life  that  we  may  have, 
in  as  far  as  we  are  free,  a  co-operative  part  in 
the  work  of  the  whole?  In  times  of  supreme 
effort  in  war  or  in  peace  this  thought  of  co- 
operation helps  to  make  them  special  times  of 
rejoicing;  and  in  the  ordinary  round  of  life  as 
well  it  helps  us  to  hear  joy's  undertone  of 
blessedness. 

IV.    joy's  undertone 

Beneath  the  discordant  din  of  the  mighty 
manufactory  it  is  claimed  that  one  may  hear  a 


Joy  171 

rliythmic  undertone.  Beneath  the  rumble,  jars, 
and  many  hideous  noises  in  the  modern  life  of 
man,  aye,  amid  the  shriek  of  shells,  the  cries 
of  the  dying,  the  sobs  of  the  mothers  of  men, 
and  its  own  Bethany  tears  of  loving  sympathy 
the  Christlike  sense  may  hear  the  rhythmic  un- 
dertone of  God,  that  strangely  makes  for  joy 
the  livelong  day  and  gives  at  night  repose.  It 
is  the  Christian's  privilege  to  rejoice  in  the 
Lord  always.  Said  one  who  lost  his  wealth  but 
not  his  joy:  ^^When  I  had  many  things  I  had 
God  in  everything.  Now  that  I  have  nothing 
I  have  everything  in  God.''  He  heard  the  un- 
dertone. So,  too,  even  those  who  have  **lost 
awhile"  their  most  dearly  and  truly  beloved 
may  hear  it  through  the  rain  of  natural  human 
tears. 

Eobert  Speer  wisely  closed  a  mammoth  meet- 
ing after  a  brakeman's  clear  voice  had  rung  out 
this  testimony:  *^It's  a  mighty  fine  thing  to 
have  Jesus  with  you  on  the  top  of  a  freight  car 
on  a  dark,  wet  night. ' '  When  the  present  other- 
wise would  be  disagreeable  and  the  future  dark 
and  you  are  driven  on  and  on,  it  is  a  mighty 
fine  thing  to  feel  a  joyous,  almost  defiant,  sense 
of  the  divine  presence — to  know  that  you  are 
travelling  *' through  ImmanuePs  ground"  and 
*^to  fairer  worlds  on  high."  Though  it  is  wise 
to  be  warned  against  the  danger  of  over-concern 


172     Christianity's  Unifying  Fundamental 

for  the  hereafter,  it  does  help  to  give  life's 
noises  an  undertone  of  mnsic  to  think  that  what- 
ever awaits  on  the  other  side  it  will  be  well,  and 
no  trne  love  will  have  been  lost. 

An  aged  couple  in  poverty  and  distress  that 
have  caused  despair,  in  the  artist's  thought  are 
visited  by  the  Man  of  Sorrows.  As  he  stretches 
toward  them  his  pierced  hands  they  hear: 
** Voices  "Within."  However  adverse  the  envi- 
ronment, the  coming  of  a  Christlike  sense  of 
God  implies  the  hearing  of  what  Henry  Van 
Dyke  calls : 

"The  secret  messages  of  God  that  make 
Perpetual  music  in  the  hearing  heart." 

"For  through  the  outer  portal  of  the  ear 
Only  the  outer  voice  of  things  may  pass; 
And  through  the  middle  doorway  of  the  mind 
Only  the  half -formed  voice  of  human  thoughts, 
Uncertain   and   perplexed  with  endless   doubt; 
But  through  the  inmost  gate  the  spirit  hears 
The  voice  of  that  great  Spirit  who  is  Life." 

Because  of  this,  the  life  of  Jesus  was  pre- 
eminently a  life  of  joy.  Because  of  this,  too, 
the  lives  of  the  Christlike,  whether  they  abound 
or  do  not  abound  in  pleasures,  may  always 
abound  in  joy.  It  is  their  privilege  to  hear 
and  heed  as  **the  voice  of  that  Great  Spirit," 


Joy  173 

**Wheii  you  fall  into  manifold  trials,  count  it 
all  joy.'' 

A  striking  contrast  will  illustrate  this  and 
bring  this  last  chapter  to  a  close  with  a  brave 
word  from  a  great  heart.  On  the  one  side 
is  Bertrand  Russell's  pathetically  admirable 
** foundation  of  unyielding  despair"  and  Hux- 
ley's agnostic  ** horror,"  of  which  he  wrote: 
*^It  flashes  across  me  at  all  sorts  of  times  with, 
a  sort  of  horror  that  in  1900  I  shall  probably 
know  no  more  of  what  is  going  on  than  I  did  in 
1800.  I  would  sooner  be  in  Hell  a  good  deal, 
at  any  rate  in  one  of  the  upper  circles,  where 
the  climate  and  company  are  not  too  trying. 
I  wonder  if  you  are  plagued  in  this  way." 

On  the  other  side  is  a  great  though  not 
widely  known  editor.  Consciously  near  to  the 
end  of  life,  he  wrote:  ** There  are  times  when 
our  difficulties  appear  to  be  grouped,  when 
things  combine  to  make  unusually  heavy  de- 
mands upon  judgment  and  patience  and  wis- 
dom. God  does  no  little  for  us  by  means  of 
those  with,  whom  we  are  associated,  but  there 
are  circumstances,  and  they  are  not  rare,  that 
make  it  necessary  to  get  what  is  needed  imme- 
diately from  Himself.  So  we  withdraw  from 
human  voice  and  the  human  eye,  if  duly  appre- 
ciating our  high  privilege,  in  order  to  receive 
what  the  Father  only  directly  bestows.    Going 


174     Christianity's   Unifying  Fundamental 

apart,  and  being  seated  it  may  be  under  His 
trees  of  a  summer  day,  or  reclining  by  a  brook 
that  goes  singing  on  its  course,  the  very  sense 
of  His  presence  that  steals  over  the  uplifted 
soul  alters  the  world  that  seemed  so  trying  but 
a  little  before.  The  sad  heart  becomes  happy. 
The  peace  of  God  takes  the  place  of  unrest  and 
dark  foreboding.  In  that  quiet  hour  fresh  gird- 
ing is  afforded  for  the  duties  ahead  and  we 
emerge  for  the  bestowment  of  blessings  in  un- 
wonted measure  upon  those  within  the  range 
of  our  influence.  *The  Still  Hour,'  of  which 
Professor  Phelps  wrote  years  ago  with  such 
beauty  and  helpfulness,  works  wonders  for  the 
hardly  bestead. 

** Because  of  what  has  been  learned  by  per- 
sonal experience  respecting  the  gainfulness  of 
communion  with  the  Lord,  some  who  read  this 
will  enter  readily  into  an  understanding  of  its 
import.  Others  again  may  not  be  able  to  do  so 
as  yet.  If  not,  then  amid  the  heat  and  dust  and 
weariness  and  discouragement  of  the  pilgrim- 
age let  them  give  heed  to  the  passing  word  of 
a  fellow-traveller  as  fraternally  he  urges  them 
to  go  aside,  when  pain  comes  and  the  load 
presses,  that  the  God  of  the  patriarchs  and  the 
apostles,  the  God  of  their  own  fathers  and 
mothers,  may  thoroughly  furnish  them  for  glo- 
rious victory.     Though  the  outlook  be  dark, 


Joy 175 

the  nplook  is  ever  bright,  and  after  the  uplook 
the  outlook  is  dark  no  more.  Put  this  care- 
fully to  the  test,  will  you  not,  and  see  for  your- 
selves." 

What  a  word  is  this  for  those  who  are  en- 
titled to  have  the  golden  stars  upon  their  flags 
or  who  otherwise  have  had  a  sword  pierce  their 
own  soul !  Christ  and  the  big  things !  Surely 
biggest  of  them  all,  because  of  what  it  is  and 
does,  is  this  loving,  consoling,  peace-imparting, 
joy-inspiring  fellowship  with  the  Father.  It  is 
recorded  that  Paul  and  Silas  beaten,  bleeding, 
with  their  feet  fast  in  the  stocks,  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  prison  were  praying  and  singing 
hymns  unto  God,  and  the  prisoners  were  lis- 
tening to  them.  Imperatively  needed  today  are 
those  who  can  rejoice  in  the  Lord  alway.  In- 
evitably it  will  be  known  and  have  its  benefi- 
cial effect.  Through  the  manifestation  of  fel- 
lowship with  Christlike  Deity  in  the  making  of 
a  Christlike  humanity  of  altruism,  home  life, 
character,  and  joy  the  Church,  and  its  individ- 
ual members,  in  these  ^* mighty  days,"  would  be 
*  *  equal  to  the  days. ' ' 


Princeton 


Theological  Seminary  Librar^^^ 


1    1012  01208  2568 


Date  Due 

^^iri  12':3 

i 

f) 

